Slate.com
Table of Contents
explainer
Prince Hairy?
explainer
ad report card
Can't Touch This
Hot Buns!
explainer
Advanced Search
What the FARC?
books
fighting words
Hollywood Archaeology
Words Matter
bushisms
foreigners
Bushism of the Day
Setting Boundaries
chatterbox
foreigners
Agony of the Arithmecrats
Putin's Potemkin Democracy
chatterbox
history lesson
Lay Off Ralph Nader
The Long Goodbye
chatterbox
hot document
Reuters Claps Horns on Hillary
Canada's Obama NAFTA Memo
corrections
hot document
Corrections
The Texas Dildo Massacre (NSFW)
culturebox
human nature
Believe It or Not
Girl Power
culturebox
human nature
The Fog of Memoir
Hanky Spanky
dear prudence
international papers
It's No Secret
Fight Club
did you see this?
jurisprudence
Women's History ... With Porn Stars
Big Business's Big Term
dispatches
low concept
Dispatches From China's Wild West
The Fake Memoirist's Survival Guide
dispatches
low concept
Trade-Offs
Worst Publishing Week Ever
dispatches
map the candidates
Monger Me, Obama!
Back to the Trail
drink
medical examiner
Could a Coffee Maker Be Worth $11,000?
Is There a Glucometer on Board? How About an Oxygen Tank?
election scorecard
moneybox
Electoral Crystal Ball
Stagflation Is Back
everyday economics
moneybox
The Case for Foreclosures
NAFTA Nonsense
explainer
moneybox
What's Taking So Long in Texas?
The Unspeakable R Word
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
1/124
movies
the chat room
Me Want Good Caveman Movie
Buzzing Over The Wire
obit
the green lantern
Farewell to the Dungeon Master
Clinton, Obama, and McCain
other magazines
the has-been
Remembering William F. Buckley
Amazing Race
poem
the undercover economist
"Acorns"
Money That Lasts Forever
politics
today's blogs
Slate's Delegate Calculator
Blast in Times Square
politics
today's blogs
Campaign Junkie
Stalemate
politics
today's blogs
Achieving the Right Level of Nasty
As the Press Turns
politics
today's blogs
She Lives!
Bearish on Russia
politics
today's papers
Bugs Bunny vs. Daffy Duck
Play it Again
politics
today's papers
Gone in 60 Seconds
No Way Out
press box
today's papers
More Plagiarism, Same Times Reporter
It Keeps Going and Going
press box
today's papers
Watching McClatchy (First in a Series)
Is This the End?
recycled
today's papers
Lies and Consequences
Double Trouble
recycled
today's papers
Favre From Heaven
Gaza Goes South
recycled
today's papers
Calling the President at 3 A.M.
Bad News for Boeing
slate v
tv club
XX Factor: Hillary's Back!
The Wire Final Season
slate v
war stories
Hawking a Bogus Memoir
Where Are This War's Winter Soldiers?
slate v
Damned Spot: "3 A.M. Phone Call"
slate v
Dear Prudence: Touchy-Feely Father-In-Law
ad report card
television
The vaguely lewd new Holiday Inn Express ads.
The Deep Thoughts of Keith Olbermann
By Seth Stevenson
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:46 AM ET
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Hot Buns!
2/124
The Spot: Four businessmen eat breakfast at their hotel buffet.
After spotting a woman standing by herself across the room, they
decide that sending a food item with their compliments might
win her favor. This spurs an argument over which food will
convey the right message. Cheese omelet? English muffin?
Cinnamon roll? They end up sending her a plate of bacon—only
to learn that what she really wanted was yogurt. "Check out the
new hot bar in town," the announcer says. "The Holiday Inn hot
breakfast bar."
Some friends and I actually pulled this classic move a couple of
times during our freshman year of college. Upon seeing a
woman we knew across the dining hall, we'd send over an envoy
bearing a glass of apple juice or skim milk. "Compliments of the
gentlemen," he'd say, gesturing toward our table. She'd look up
to see us all winking and doing the thumb-index-finger-point
thing. (Though it got a decent reception, I am not proud of this
behavior. Much better were the nights we bogarted the dining
hall's many Reddi-wip canisters and did brain-bludgeoning
rounds of whippits. I'm convinced the resultant IQ loss is why I
now write about advertising instead of, like, international
finance.)
This Holiday Inn Express ad is part of a campaign announcing
that new hot foods are available at the hotel chain's breakfast
bars. According to director of brand marketing Steve Ekdahl, the
"consumer insight" at play here was the company's realization
that "people want hot food options at breakfast." Because
research further revealed that sometimes people are in a hurry to
get to morning meetings, the hotel is also launching an amenity
it terms the "to-go bag." Travelers can stuff these full of
muffins—or even greasy fistfuls of bacon—before sprinting out
to their cars to eat while driving.
I'm always in favor of funny ads (I admit I chuckle at the
"Cinnamon roll? That's something you send your sister!" line),
as long as the joke's interlaced with the marketing message.
Here, the slogan "the new hot bar in town" serves to highlight
the warmed foods on offer while providing a stage for some riffs
on lame night-life behavior. In deciphering the pun, you're
forced to think about the product. Through that cognitive twostep, the sales pitch cements itself in your memory.
This ad was directed by Hank Perlman, who also co-created the
long-running ESPN "This Is SportsCenter" campaign. Like these
Holiday Inn Express ads, the SportsCenter spots mostly feature
clean-cut guys wearing ties in their mundane natural habitats
(office cubicles, the public spaces of hotels), mashed up with
some mildly absurd situations. The other clear influence at work
here is the recent campaign from sister brand Holiday Inn (the
"green sign" brand, as it's known within the company). Both
hotel campaigns come from the ad agency Fallon Worldwide,
and both find humor in the pathetic off-hours high jinks of
buttoned-down business types.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
"The bull's-eye is the male business traveler," says Ekdahl,
describing his brand's target demographic. In particular, he
hopes to reach the sort of active, younger businessman who
travels for work on a near-constant basis. ("Road warriors" or
"everyday heroes," in the industry parlance—though I find those
terms a touch dramatic. We're talking about dudes giving
PowerPoint presentations.) Studies show that these travelers tend
to book their upcoming week's accommodations on Sunday or
Monday, so Holiday Inn Express buys lots of airtime on
weekend sports broadcasts and Monday-morning news shows.
I asked some Slate women what they thought of the ad, given
the gender dynamic at work in it, and it was agreed that there's a
certain yuck factor if we imagine this happening in the real
world. "There's a fun business trip," Slatester Dana Stevens
scoffed: "Fending off a bunch of leering middle managers before
sitting down alone to a cup of cold yogurt!" (Before you start,
it's totally different from my college prank. Friends in the dining
hall does not equal strangers at a roadside hotel. I think.) Of
course, the ad isn't meant to be taken too seriously. And it's
worth noting that in another spot from the campaign, titled
"Ladies Night," the roles are reversed—with a quartet of
businesswomen doing the leering.
The main effect these ads had on my correspondents, though,
was to remind them how distinctly un-fun hotel breakfast bars
really are. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick imagined the brief to the ad
agency going something like, "Tell viewers these are not lonely,
isolating places where men stare hollow-eyed at CNN."
Meanwhile, Emily Yoffe praised— somewhat backhandedly—
the ad's set design: "It accurately gives the feel of their breakfast
bar: a windowless box with fiberboard furniture and Styrofoam
dishware (and food). It's sexytime!"
Valid critiques, all. Sadly, the people these ads are aimed at have
no choice but to frequent such venues. They'll likely be pleased
about the hot food, at least. And I find the ad's central conceit—
that you might enjoy yourself eating breakfast at a Holiday Inn
Express—a harmless fib.
Grade: B+. My biggest concern about the ad is that viewers
might forget which hotel chain it's for. Ekdahl says he worried
about this, too, and as a result he was actually tweaking the ads
the day I called him. "About 15 minutes before I got on the
phone with you, we were making some last minute
readjustments to increase the brand linkage. We're doing CGI to
make sure the logo is more clearly visible in the background."
The ads will be returned to the airwaves with the "Express" logo
that appears on the sign behind the actors now printed in blue,
instead of in white. Watch for it! No doubt the impact will be
startling.
3/124
Advanced Search
Friday, October 19, 2001, at 6:39 PM ET
books
Hollywood Archaeology
What five Academy Award contenders can tell us about the '60s.
By Sarah Kerr
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 4:15 PM ET
Two smart young guys worked at Esquire in the early to mid'60s, and in their spare time they worshipped films of the French
New Wave. They had no clue how to make movies. But they
were bold and lucky. They teamed up to write a screenplay
about a sexy couple of bank robbers in Depression-era Texas.
They sent a story treatment to their favorite French director,
who, improbably, loved it. Then their top choice (François
Truffaut) got busy with something else and passed the project
along to a French friend.
The team was excited to work with this second French director.
But they balked when he told them that instead of taking the
time and doing the prep work to shoot at authentic locations, he
wanted to shoot quickly—in New Jersey, in the winter. Thus—
unimaginably, to anyone who knows the finished work directed
by Arthur Penn—for the briefest moment in the early
development of the film that was to become Bonnie and Clyde,
the director could have been a playfully abstruse Jean-Luc
Godard. And the star to whom Godard might have yelled
"action" on an icy morning in Jersey? Instead of Warren Beatty,
that could have been Elliott Gould!
Godard's flyby "flirtation" with Bonnie and Clyde is one of
dozens of facts in Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution: Five
Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood that invite a double
take. After beating back an early critical scolding on its release
in 1967, the film was hailed for its groundbreaking sensibility. It
was expert in the art of raising tension, visually highly designed
yet aggressively naturalistic, with some of the least euphemized
violence up to that point in American film. Some of its images
(the actress Faye Dunaway, honey-haired under her raffish '30s
beret) quickly became iconic.
But the film's success turns out to have been anything but
inevitable. Harris, in giving us the circuitous back story of its
production—and the twists and turns in the creation of the four
other 1967 films vying for the 1968 Academy Award for Best
Motion Picture (The Graduate, the dueling Sidney Poitier
vehicles Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the
Night, and Doctor Dolittle)—reminds us how long and
frustrating, and above all how mysteriously contingent, the
process of making movies is. And, by extension, how easily the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
icons of any era might have been utterly different from the ones
we've come to know.
The unspoken premise of Harris' look back is not quite what
you'd expect from a writer-editor at Entertainment Weekly,
where instant zeitgeist readings reign: When you live through a
tumultuous time like the 1960s, and you work in an industry like
the movies—whose projects, unlike a rock 'n' roll song, take
years to gear up and require the investment and teamwork of
seriously disparate people—it's more in retrospect that you can
see the pattern of how a new sensibility was born. On the
ground, there are hunches and uncertainty. Only over time—
after the film comes out, after spontaneously erupted polemics
and unplanned popular borrowings and an embrace or rejection
by the audience (back then a much longer process than our
make-or-break opening weekend)—can you trace out which
direction the culture was heading in. The negotiations are filled
with energy and ironies and can-you-believe-this anecdotes.
Anyone who wants to—geniuses and idealists and hacks, profit
seekers, the passionate and the easily pleased audience—gets to
pitch in.
Harris rightly takes for granted that we know the basic stormy
context of the decade. Zeroing in on Hollywood in the mid-'60s,
we see an industry still knocked off balance by the rise of TV
and held back by square romantic-comedy and historical-epic
formulas, creaky censorship codes, and dated ideas about
glamour. Harris tells us how The Graduate, along with Bonnie
and Clyde, helped shake this status quo. Mike Nichols, a Young
Turk director hailed for an impressive bunch of Broadway
successes, as well as for his skilled herding of Liz Taylor and
Richard Burton through Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,
leveraged his studio pull on a casting gamble. He picked a short
mumbler of an actor, Dustin Hoffman, to star as Benjamin
Braddock, the privileged California kid seduced by his parents'
friend Mrs. Robinson. The studio suits had dismissed Hoffman
as a preposterous leading man, but Nichols knew what he was up
to. Hoffman's very diffidence turned out to capture the yearning,
judging withdrawal of youth from the older generation. Nichols,
interviewed by Harris, also recalls his own slowly dawning
realization that, with a bit of autobiographical drive, he had
unconsciously remolded the Benjamin character from a WASP
golden boy into a sardonic, Jewish-inflected outsider.
In a fascinating side note, Harris shows how early iterations of
Bonnie and Clyde had a bit of bisexual subtext that ultimately
fell by the wayside. This was not yet the decade for such
explorations. The big movie argument of 1967, carried out with
good intentions if sometimes with pokey awkwardness, was over
white society's acceptance of the black man. (If the second half
of that last sentence seems lacking in irony, it's on purpose.)
Compared with his cheering on of The Graduate, Harris paints a
rounder portrait of Sidney Poitier, at the height of his
pathbreaking career, brave, admired, and often trapped. Poitier's
peerlessly composed screen presence was called upon to lift
4/124
heavy symbolic burdens. Harris revisits the obstacles he faced as
well as the criticism that was starting to dog him—that by
continually signing on to play perfect men, he risked turning into
a handy exception to the rules of white prejudice. Harris doesn't
much like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but his respectful
probings capture its peculiar status as a film that seemed poised
to stir up anxieties about interracial marriage but turned into a
crowd-pleasing hit.
Instead of offering up a familiar, tidy thesis about what the '60s
"meant," Harris has dipped us into the soup of culture-making.
On top of many interviews, he's pored over memoirs and
clippings and critical reactions of the day, gathering up funny
quotes and, in the case of Doctor Dolittle star Rex Harrison,
depressing but rivetingly weird gossip—a sampling, perhaps, of
what the scene might have looked like if something like a TMZ
had been up and running back then.
In a way, this is the '60s filtered through the zeitgeist of our time.
For we are creatures of information, debating about our debates,
compulsively knowing and wanting to know more. Harris' fresh
approach captures the live spark of creation. The spark of
revolution, though? It's in its nature to have burned out a while
back. We haven't lacked in recent decades for violent, moody
films about outlaws or quirky comedies with infectious
soundtracks about the generation gap. If anything, for our time,
the templates set by Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate wield
the influence of stolid classics. Which raises the question, Who
will emerge to overthrow them?
bushisms
Bushism of the Day
By Jacob Weisberg
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 6:34 PM ET
"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I
appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws
of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq."—meeting with
Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008
Click here to see video of Bush's comments. The Bushism is at
1:23.
Got a Bushism? Send it to bushisms@slate.com. For more, see
"The Complete Bushisms."
.
.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
.
chatterbox
Agony of the Arithmecrats
Mr. Dooley was wrong. Politics is beanbag.
By Timothy Noah
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 8:01 PM ET
"Just sit back, empty your mind, and let it happen," I advised
political observers on Feb. 6. But did they listen?
The arithmecracy triumphed on Super Tuesday. Hillary Clinton's
alleged momentum was halted, just as Barack Obama's alleged
momentum had been halted in New Hampshire. Even before
Super Tuesday, Karl Rove, the designated genius of presidential
politics, had written that momentum (he called it "the big
bounce") was a dead letter. After Super Tuesday, everyone
agreed that Obama faced a month of likely primary victories—
excepting possibly Wisconsin—but that this winning streak
would likely end with Clinton winning Texas, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania. Nearly all of these predictions have now come to
pass. Granted, Obama won Wisconsin by a larger-than-expected
15-percent margin, making significant inroads among white
males. But otherwise, this past month has brought no real
surprises. Clinton won Texas and Ohio, as she was expected to
do, and as I write, polls still indicate she'll likely win
Pennsylvania, too.
But the commentariat has a short memory, even for its own most
accurate predictions. To borrow from the joke John McCain
likes to tell about his age, political pundits can hide their own
Easter eggs. The primary outcomes they foretold came to pass,
and lo, they were astounded. They acted like a weatherman who
predicts rain on the 6 o'clock news, goes home, goes to bed,
wakes up the next morning, looks out the window, and exclaims,
"Holy cow! It's raining!" As Obama piled up one anticipated
victory after another, recovering momentucrats fell off the
wagon. The Washington Post's Dan Balz, who on the day after
Super Tuesday wrote, "Evenly Matched Dems Portend A Long
Race," a mere one week later wrote, "Clinton Scrambles To Try
to Reverse Obama's Momentum."
Hillary Clinton encouraged the Obamamentum mirage by
replacing her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, right after
Super Tuesday. This wasn't evidence of an imploding campaign
so much as what literary critics call an "objective correlative"—
an outward, purely symbolic expression of some inward concept
or emotion. If you'd skimmed Josh Green's story about disarray
in Clinton's campaign, posted last month on the Atlantic's Web
site, you might have gotten the impression that Clinton was
5/124
losing primary after primary to Obama because Doyle had done
a poor job. But if you'd read the piece more carefully, you likely
would have noticed that, according to Green, Doyle had been
doing a poor job for a very long time. Terry McAuliffe,
chairman of the Clinton campaign, and Maggie Williams, who
eventually replaced Doyle, tried to get rid of Doyle two years
ago, only to be overruled by Clinton. This means that if Doyle
really did do a poor job (and Green is pretty convincing on this
point), she was doing that poor job back when Clinton's
candidacy was riding high. You therefore couldn't logically
blame Obama's long-predicted victories in places like Louisiana
and Virginia and Washington state on "campaign disarray,"
except in the negative sense that Doyle failed to turn those states
around. (On the other hand, to whatever extent voters find out
that Clinton left a purportedly incompetent campaign manager in
place two years after she should have canned her, they will
likely think less of Clinton's managerial abilities, which in turn
could hurt her in subsequent primaries. That hasn't happened
yet.)
To sum up: The arithmecrats were right all along. Momentum is
the fanciful invention of a class of people who have a weakness
for (and a financial incentive to create) a dramatic narrative.
There is no substitute for counting delegates. Henceforth, we
must only count delegates.
But—here's where it gets complicated—primary delegates alone
can't carry either Obama or Clinton all the way to 2,025, the
magic number (a simple majority) needed to win the nomination.
It's mathematically impossible, apparently, given the closeness
of the race and the number of primary delegates left to win in the
remaining contests. The church of arithmetic therefore will have
to yield at some point to the church of perception—in this case,
the perceptions of the 795 superdelegates who'll provide the
necessary margin to one candidate or the other.
Superdelegates are free to change their minds about whom to
support right up until the roll call at the convention. It's widely
assumed that once the primary season's over, most
superdelegates will side with whichever candidate has won the
most popular support. That's what happened in 1984, according
to Walter Mondale's delegate counter, Tad Devine. Mondale
ended the primary season about 40 delegates shy of a majority.
Gary Hart had won in more states than Mondale, but Mondale
had received slightly more votes overall, and he had more
delegates than Hart. So the superdelegates went with Mondale.
Proportionally, 84 primary delegates would constitute about 2
percent of all delegates in attendance at the convention. Would 2
percent constitute a mandate? How close does the delegate count
need to get before the superdelegates call it a wash? A consensus
has yet to emerge on that magic number. (Presumably the magic
number should be less than the primary-delegate spread between
Hart and Mondale in 1984, but I don't know what that number is.
It can't be 40, because there was a third candidate, Jesse Jackson,
who still controlled some delegates. If you know the answer,
please e-mail me at chatterbox@slate.com.)
Or is the proper metric the total number of votes cast in the
primaries? The Web site RealClearPolitics estimates that Obama
is nearly 600,000 primary votes ahead of Clinton nationwide.
But if Michigan and Florida are counted (which they probably
shouldn't be, because Obama and Clinton didn't campaign there
and because in Michigan Hillary was the only major candidate
on the ballot), that 600,000 plurality shifts over to Clinton.
Conceivably the same percentages might be achieved if
Michigan and Florida are permitted to vote again prior to the
convention, as seems more likely. It's even possible that one
candidate will receive a plurality of primary votes while another
candidate receives a plurality of delegates. Do votes trump
delegates? Do delegates trump votes?
A cherished political cliché has it that politics ain't beanbag. But
Mr. Dooley was wrong. Politics is beanbag, not in the sense that
it's a gentle game suitable for small children but in the sense that
you don't necessarily have to get the beanbag through the hole in
the target box to win. Under the right circumstances, you can
still win if you get it near the hole. To pull that off, though, it
helps to know the rules. The arithmecracy has no clear guidance
to offer, because these aren't mathematical questions.
Momentucracy vs. Arithmecracy Archive:
Feb. 6, 2008: "Triumph of the Arithmecrats"
Feb. 1, 2008: "On the Media" interview about momentucracy
and arithmecracy, New York Public Radio
Jan. 30, 2008: "Momentucrats vs. Arithmecrats, Part 2"
Jan. 28, 2008: "Momentucrats vs. Arithmecrats"
Jan. 21, 2008: "Is Obama Winning?"
Dec. 11, 2007: "Whose Nominee Is It, Anyway?"
chatterbox
The trouble is, how do you define "popular support"? Is it the
number of delegates won? According to Slate's excellent
delegate counter, Obama has 140 more primary delegates than
Clinton. That spread would narrow to 84 primary delegates if
Clinton were to win every remaining primary by 10 points,
which seems unlikely. But suppose this were to happen, or some
variation that yielded a similar numeric difference. Would
superdelegates perceive this as a win for Obama, or a virtual tie?
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Lay Off Ralph Nader
Third-party candidates are people, too.
By Timothy Noah
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 7:32 PM ET
6/124
I have never understood why people get upset whenever Ralph
Nader runs for president.
The principal indictment is that Nader cost Al Gore the 2000
election by drawing votes from Gore in Florida. Gore lost
Florida to George W. Bush by 537 votes. Nader received 97,488
votes. National exit polls indicated that had Nader not been on
the ballot, 47 percent of Nader voters would have voted for
Gore, 21 percent would have voted for Bush, and 32 percent
would have stayed home. Therefore, if Nader hadn't run, then
Gore would have won.
Well, sure. But in an election this preposterously close, you can
blame the outcome on almost anything. In a Feb. 24 appearance
on NBC's Meet the Press, Nader pointed out that seven other
third-party candidates on the Florida ballot outpolled Bush's
537-vote margin, too. These included James Harris of the
Socialist Workers Party (563), David McReynolds of the
Socialist Party (622), and Monica Moorehead of the Workers
World Party (1,804). Granted, we don't have exit poll numbers
on these candidates, who stood much further left of the
mainstream than Nader. But it's doubtful their supporters would
have defaulted to the GOP. Should we vilify them for costing
Gore the election, too?
Nationwide, Nader won 2.9 million votes in 2000. Four years
later, he won only 466,000 (PDF), which, as Steve Kornacki
pointed out in the Feb. 25 New York Observer ("Who's Afraid of
Ralph Nader?") is much closer to the 685,000 he won in his
little-remembered 1996 bid and is probably a truer expression of
his natural level of support. (In 2000, Kornacki argues, Nader
got an unusual boost from independent voters stranded by the
defeats of Bill Bradley and John McCain in the primaries.)
Nobody particularly objected to Nader's 1996 bid, because he
didn't get very many votes. In 2000, though, Nader was
condemned, in effect, for being too popular. He was, the liberal
consensus pronounced, on an "ego trip." (The word/phrase
combination Nader, ego trip, and president yields 3,200 hits on
Google.) He was tarnishing his legacy as a champion of
government and corporate accountability. That criticism has
stuck, even though Nader has once again reverted to being a
fringe candidate who poses no apparent threat to the Democratic
nominee. He's damned if he wins too many votes, and he's
damned if he wins too few.
I've never cast a presidential vote for Nader, and I never will.
Nor do I agree with Nader that the similarities between the
Republican and Democratic parties render superfluous any
choice between the two. But as someone who has observed (and
admired) Nader all my life, I don't doubt for a second that Nader
sincerely believes that. He's never remained satisfied with
Democratic politicians, even those with whom he enjoyed a
warm working relationship before they entered politics. (The
only possible exception is Mark Green, who may have
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
maintained Nader's affections by losing a series of bids for high
office: the House, the Senate, the New York mayoralty.) Nader
doesn't believe in compromise, and, yes, that would be a
problem if he ever really did become president. But his
stubbornness has been only an asset in his long career as an
advocate, and I'm not so sure it's a liability in his newer career as
a perpetual candidate. In the current election, Nader is the sole
presidential candidate you're likely to hear about (now that
Dennis Kucinich has dropped out) who stands forthrightly for
adopting a single-payer solution to the health-care crisis, a
stance universally regarded as politically impractical. But single
payer is the only solution of much practical value in the real
world, as evidenced by the experience of nearly all advanced
democracies. If Nader does no more in the 2008 election than
oblige major-party candidates to consider that stubborn reality
for five minutes, he'll have done us all a big favor.
chatterbox
Reuters Claps Horns on Hillary
The Obama Messiah Watch, Part 10
By Timothy Noah
Sunday, March 2, 2008, at 5:19 PM ET
Is Barack Obama the rod out of the stem of Jesse? To answer
this question, Slate has periodically gathered gratuitously
adoring material from newspaper, television, and magazine
profiles of the U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author,
Harvard Law Review president, Men's Vogue cover model, twotime Grammy winner, efficient note-taker, physics wunderkind,
descendent of George Washington's great-great-great-great-great
grandfather, teenage jazz enthusiast, possible telepathic
communicator with space aliens from distant galaxies,
improvement on all civil rights gains since 1957, calmer of
turbulent Iownas, and front-running candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
Last month, Reuters clapped a halo on Michelle
Obama. The March 10 Time, in its cover
photograph, bathes the head of the candidate himself in
otherworldly white light. But the good book says
that before Christ, there was the Antichrist. We
know him as the devil, the beast, the foul fiend,
the cloven hoof, the prince of darkness, the angel
of the bottomless pit, Old Scratch, Satan,
Beelzebub, Belial, Lucifer, and Mephistopheles. The
iconographers in Reuters' photo department
propose a new name. Care to guess? Hint: It's
someone with at least 35 years of experience and a
fondness for red phones. Yes, Reuters wants you to
know that these days the Antichrist travels under
the nom de guerre "Hillary." I don't know how else
7/124
to read this photograph. Me, I have my doubts.
Wouldn't the devil do better advance work?
Obama Messiah Watch archive:
Jan. 29, 2007: Took very few notes in class!
Feb. 5, 2007: Mastered laws governing universe!
Feb. 7, 2007: Shares ancestor with George Washington!
Feb. 9, 2007: Dug jazz when he was still a middle-schooler!
Feb. 13, 2007: Communicates (possibly) with space aliens!
Feb. 14, 2007: Better than civil rights!
April 4, 2007: Accept no substitutes.
Sept. 12, 2007: Calms turbulent Iowans!
Feb. 13, 2008: Michelle Obama's halo!
corrections
Corrections
Friday, March 7, 2008, at 7:29 AM ET
In the March 6 "Election Scorecard," Chadwick Matlin
mistakenly included Vermont instead of New Hampshire in a list
of states Barack Obama would likely win in the general election,
according to SurveyUSA.
In the March 5 "Explainer," Chris Wilson incorrectly stated that
by the 1990s, members of the Marine Corps were described as
"jarheads" because of their buzz haircuts. The term has been
used since at least World War II, perhaps in reference to the
Marines' high-collared blue dress uniforms, which looked a bit
like Mason jars made of blue glass.
In the March 4 "Explainer," Juliet Lapidos stated that the Latin
word vixi is the past tense of to leave. It's actually the past tense
of to live.
In the caption for a photograph that accompanied the March 3
"Dispatches," Joshua Kucera originally misidentified miniature
rawaps (a traditional Uighur lute) as miniature duduks.
In the March 2 "Today's Papers," Lydia DePillis originally cited
a report from an unnamed source who told newspapers that troop
withdrawals in Iraq would begin in July. The alleged withdrawal
plan would extend to the end of the year and pause in July for
provincial elections.
If you believe you have found an inaccuracy in a Slate story,
please send an e-mail to corrections@slate.com, and we will
investigate. General comments should be posted in "The Fray,"
our reader discussion forum.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
culturebox
Believe It or Not
Memoir fabulists getting caught means the system is working.
By Ben Yagoda
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 5:29 PM ET
In 1837, the American Anti-Slavery Society published the life
story of a fugitive slave who went by the name of James
Williams. The book, narrated in Williams' first-person voice,
told of his harsh treatment on an Alabama plantation and the
torture he had seen inflicted on his fellow slaves. The veracity of
the book was almost immediately challenged by an Alabama
newspaper editor, who called it "a notorious libel upon our
country" and printed a letter claiming that Williams was in fact
Shadrach Wilkins, a fugitive not only from slavery but from
charges of attempted murder. The Anti-Slavery Society initially
denied the charges, but the accusation didn't go away, and the
society directed two of its members to investigate. These men
reluctantly concluded that "many of the Statements made in the
said Narrative were false." Weeks later, the society discontinued
sales of the book. James Williams/Shadrach Wilkins,
meanwhile, was nowhere to be found.
So the fake memoir—currently in the news with the daily-double
outing of Love and Consequences and Misha: A Mémoire of the
Holocaust Years—is by no means a phenomenon that originated
with James Frey. In fact, the history of autobiography is full of
them. A 1937, book called Sisters of the Road was supposedly
the memoirs of Boxcar Bertha Thompson, a female hobo; years
later, the real author was revealed to be Ben Reitman, a Chicago
physician and reformer. The Education of Little Tree, the
autobiography of a Cherokee boy growing up in the 1930s, was
published in 1976 and became a young-adult classic. Actual
author: Asa Carter, a white Alabaman who had once been a Ku
Klux Klan member and a speechwriter for George Wallace. So
many holes have been found in Lillian Hellman's
autobiographical trilogy of An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento,
and Scoundrel Time that the books couldn't keep you dry on a
drizzly day.
But is it such a terrible thing that so many lying memoirists have
been exposed? On the contrary: It's evidence that the system
works. (Full disclosure: I am writing a book on memoir for
Riverhead Books, the publisher of Love and Consequences.)
Consider the case of James Williams' tale of his life as a slave.
The discovery that it was a fraud chastened the abolitionists who
had been behind the book. They continued to seek out and
publish slave narratives, but post-Williams, knowing that their
very cause was at stake, they put a finer point on the truthfulness
of the tales they were distributing. They began sending their
authors on the lecture circuit to answer questions from all
8/124
corners and, equally important, to show that they existed, scars
and all. Scores of slave narratives—including The
Autobiography of Frederic Douglass, a classic of American
literature—were published after the Williams affair, and it's
universally acknowledged that these memoirs were an important
factor in the abolition of slavery.
And this is pretty much how things have happened since then:
The perpetrators have eventually been found out. Or, to be more
precise, the more brazen or audacious the lie, the greater the
likelihood of exposure.
In the wake of the Frey and now the Jones scandals, there's been
hand-wringing about the need for fact-checking—or lie-detector
tests or something!—at publishing houses. But you're never
going to stop people from making stuff up. It is a fact of human
nature that a substantial number of people have the capacity and
inclination to lie. Some of them are pathological and lie because
they are compelled to or just for the fun of it. But generally
people lie only when a) they sense that people will believe them,
and b) they will be rewarded (with respect, attention, career
advancement, money, pity, or something else they covet).
It stands to reason that the same thing would be true for writers
(and this includes disgraced journalists like Janet Cooke and
Stephen Glass as well as memoirists). The more skilled they are,
the more deftly they can make people believe. Moreover, in
today's competitive literary market, editors and other
gatekeepers want to believe. That's in part because people are
naturally credulous (the alternative—reflexive skepticism—is
unattractive for many people to contemplate) and in part because
the rewards are so great. Memoir today is like one big game of
misery poker: The more outlandish, outrageous, or just plain outthere the recounted life, the more likely the book is to attract the
attention of reviewers, talk-show bookers, and, ultimately, the
public.
A personal narrative presented as factual—whether it's between
covers or coming out of some guy's mouth at a bar—always
plays for some level of stakes. If the story is innocuous or dull, it
will probably stay unchallenged. But the higher the stakes—if its
"facts" are in support of charged political issues, if it makes
unlikely or melodramatic representations, if it defames some
recognizable individuals, or if it starts selling in significant
numbers—the more likely it becomes that the fakers will be
outed.
Lillian Hellman didn't get the investigative treatment until part
of Pentimento was made into the movie Julia, starring Jane
Fonda as Lillian; James Frey didn't get it till Oprah anointed
him. The family depicted in Augusten Burroughs' Running With
Scissors didn't sue him until the book became a massive bestseller. And the author of Love and Consequences was exposed
only when her picture appeared in a New York Times interview
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
as "Margaret Jones" and her sister called the newspaper to report
that the lady in question was really Margaret Seltzer.
As I say, the system works. It throws shame on the perpetrators
and metes out more or less appropriate career punishment;
certainly, the fabulists lose the credibility needed to publish
additional nonfiction books (unless they're in the form of an
apology for—or explanation of—their misdeeds, as with
disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair). The editors of
fake memoirs are suitably chastened: Even if they acted in
totally good faith, it's presumably one-more-strike-and-they'reout. And with each scandal, the whole book world—editors,
reviewers, and readers—gets a little warier and adjusts its BS
detectors one more notch toward Level Orange. The NYT
reported that at the request of Riverhead Books, Seltzer "signed
a contract in which she had legally promised to tell the truth."
Of course, she lied on the contract, too. So while the system
works, it isn't perfect. No matter what color the general alert, at
some point in the not-distant future, a memoir—say, an inspiring
saga about being raised by autistic parents in the hollows of
Kentucky—will come across an editor's desk and knock his
socks off. He will meet the author, who will talk a good game
and who will, once the book is published, get plentiful bookings
and money reviews. It will seem too good to be true. It will be.
But sooner or later, someone will do some checking and get the
goods.
culturebox
The Fog of Memoir
The feud over the truthfulness of Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone.
By Gabriel Sherman
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 2:20 PM ET
On Jan. 19, the Australian, Rupert Murdoch's Aussie broadsheet,
published a 4,600-word investigation challenging the credibility
of the child-soldier memoir A Long Way Gone. Author Ishmael
Beah's heart-wrenching account of Sierra Leone's civil war and
the two years he spent as a cocaine-addicted teenage killer
achieved instant literary acclaim after its publication last winter
and was selected as the inaugural title in Starbucks' reading club.
Into its 35th printing, A Long Way Gone has sold more than
600,000 copies worldwide. Beah, 27, now travels the world as a
UNICEF ambassador raising awareness for the plight of child
soldiers.
If you believe the Australian, much of the memoir is bunk. In a
dozen scathing articles published since mid-January, a trio of
Australian journalists alleges that Beah grossly exaggerated his
story: Beah served as an orphaned child soldier for little more
9/124
than two months, not the sweeping two years his memoir
chronicles. And, according to the journalists, the book's most
dramatic plot twists—the time Beah was shot three times in the
foot by an AK-47 and the moment Beah witnessed six murders
in a UNICEF refugee camp—don't check out at all.
Beah, his editor, Sarah Crichton at Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
and his agent, Ira Silverberg, vigorously deny the allegations. In
the book, Beah claims to have a photographic memory. He says
he has documented his tragic story with infallible accuracy, and
lucidly recounts scenes of violence, executions, and torture. But
these denials haven't stopped the Australian from waging one of
the fiercest, knock-down, drag-out literary feuds in recent
memory. The fight pits three Australian reporters, Peter Wilson,
David Nason, and Shelley Gare, against Beah, Crichton, and
Silverberg. The standoff has spanned four continents and bled
into cyberspace, as both sides have entered competing changes
into Beah's Wikipedia page. Last month, Wilson tracked Beah
around London during his European book tour, trying to land an
interview after repeatedly being rebuffed by FSG. Wilson even
planted questions with a student reporter from the Oxford
University newspaper after the Oxford Union banned him from
attending Beah's reading there. Throughout the onslaught, FSG
hasn't budged.
"The whole idea that these f-----g muckraking hacks are wagging
their fingers at FSG is ludicrous," Beah's agent, Ira Silverberg,
told me. "It's been three months of dealing with these people.
When they couldn't get one thing, they went looking for
something else. I've never witnessed anything so lowbrow as an
endeavor to disgrace a really well-meaning and lovely person,
who actually did suffer enormously."
"Exactly," Wilson counters. "I'm sure he went through a terrible
ordeal, but the truth matters. It is plain to anyone who wants to
look at this objectively that he did not experience what has been
sold as the truth to hundreds of thousands of readers. The truth
matters. It sounds naive, but the shocking thing is: the publishers
don't care about this. They've made millions of dollars."
Just how did this whole brouhaha start in the first place?
The story begins last fall when an Australian mining engineer
stationed in Sierra Leone named Bob Lloyd learned that one of
his employees at the Sierra Rutile mine near Beah's village
claimed to be Beah's father. Lloyd had read A Long Way Gone
and was especially moved by Beah's tragic account of his
parents' deaths in a rebel attack on the village of Yele. Elated at
the possibility of reuniting Beah with his father, Lloyd tried
contacting Beah. He sent e-mails to Beah's Australian publisher,
HarperCollins, FSG, and Beah's adopted American mother, a
New York-based human rights activist and professional
storyteller named Laura Simms. In addition, Lloyd explained in
his e-mails that workers at the mine were telling him that the
book's chronology was wrong: Rebels had taken over the mine
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
in January 1995, not 1993 as Beah describes in A Long Way
Gone. If true, that would mean Beah served as a soldier only for
several months when he was 14 going on 15.
From the outset, Lloyd received a chilly reception from Beah's
camp. On Nov. 9, Simms responded with a protective e-mail and
a list of test questions to help determine whether the man was
Beah's father. Two days later, Lloyd sent an e-mail back
answering Simms' questions. His reply went unanswered for 10
days, and on Nov. 22, Lloyd replied with a follow-up e-mail that
included two photos of Joseph Beah, the man claiming to be the
father. Then, the next day, Simms responded to Lloyd with a
curious message. Instead of the polished prose that she had
previously written, her e-mail on Nov. 23 contained sentence
fragments and awkward syntax, as if English wasn't her first
language (which it is). "Thank you for pursing this," the e-mail
bearing Simms' address replied. "However, Ishmael say that this
is NOT his father. … Why you said in my letter that this man
came to you and why you told Sarah [Crichton] that you sought
out the boy's father." The e-mail concluded with this ominous
warning: "We are deeply concerned that this issue not go further
than you, and Sarah and myself."
Frustrated, Lloyd contacted a television producer in Sydney
named Anita Jacoby with an Australian interview program
called Enough Rope With Andrew Denton. Beah had recently
been featured on the program, and Lloyd thought Jacoby could
go around the recalcitrant publishers and guardian and pass
along a message directly to Beah that his father might be alive.
Three days later, Jacoby called her friend Shelley Gare, a 55year-old freelance journalist and former newspaper and
magazine editor. Jacoby told Gare there might be a story behind
A Long Way Gone. According to Gare, Lloyd was reluctant to
talk to the press and had no intention of taking his claims to the
media. But he was troubled by FSG and Simms' response.
Wouldn't a man bearing good news that Beah's father was
potentially alive be embraced? In the publisher's cagey
responses, Lloyd began to sense there might be a reason they
didn't want to know that some facts could differ from the
account in Beah's memoir. Lloyd, after some prodding by Gare,
agreed to go public.
Gare spent several weeks looking into Lloyd's story that Beah's
father was in fact alive, and she called Crichton and FSG's
public relations director, Jeff Seroy, for comment on Dec. 11. "It
was a very hostile exchange," Gare told me. First, Gare raised
the possibility that Beah's father wasn't dead, and then she told
Crichton about the discrepancy with the book's chronology and
that Beah might have become a child soldier in 1995, not 1993.
"After that, there was an incredibly long silence," she said.
Crichton denies this account and says that the Australians were
biased from the beginning because they somehow felt slighted
by FSG. "They felt dissed by us," Crichton told me. "It weirded
10/124
us out. Right from the outset, Shelley Gare said 'You were rude
to Bob Lloyd. Laura Simms was rude to him.' They felt we
weren't taking them seriously as journalists."
Two days later, Crichton wrote Gare a lengthy e-mail both
defending the book and detailing her qualifications as an editor
and writer: She's a former Newsweek editor; she runs her own
imprint at FSG and collaborated with Mariane Pearl, wife of
murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, on her
memoir. To Gare, Crichton's message implied: Do you know
who I am? On Dec. 15, Gare e-mailed Crichton back. "Thank
you for your letter but I need to make some points for the
record," she wrote. "One, I have never suggested that Ishmael's
entire story is a hoax. Nor have the Lloyds. … Two, it was
entirely appropriate for me to bring up the problem of the date
on page six. … Please do not try and make it appear that I
purposely tried to spring something on you."
Gare also disputed Crichton's assertions that the Australian and
Bob Lloyd were trying to create a media spectacle of Ishmael's
memoir. "The Lloyds came to you, via HarperCollins, with
exactly that intention of private celebration in mind," she wrote
Crichton. "They were met with a mix of such rudeness, silence
and dismissiveness that they finally went to Andrew Denton's
website simply seeking to get help. Andrew Denton's people NB not the Lloyds - eventually got in touch with me after the
Lloyds continued to have problems that seemed puzzling. … Ms
Crichton, I understand your fierce passion for this book, but
nobody at this end has ever tried to do anything except present
some key points to Ishmael Beah and to the people who have
been working with him. The Lloyds honestly believed and still
do that they were going to help unite a father and son."
In January, the Australian's European correspondent, Peter
Wilson, traveled from London to Sierra Leone to investigate
Beah's story on the ground while Gare finished writing the piece
back in Sydney. In Sierra Leone, Wilson discovered that the man
claiming to be Ishmael's father was mistaken and was most
likely a distant cousin, but questions about the book's timeline
remained puzzling. Several locals, including the boarding master
at Beah's school and the village chief, confirmed to Wilson that
the attack on the village of Mattru Jong that Beah describes in
the book occurred in January 1995, not 1993. The incident is a
pivotal moment in Beah's narrative: After the rebels occupy
Mattru Jong, Beah is forced to flee and begins his monthslong
exile before being conscripted in the army for two years. "The
only way any of us survived was by using a footpath through the
swamp which was the one thing the rebels had not noticed,"
Sylvester Basopan Goba, the acting chief of Mattru Jong, told
the Australian. "If they had done their reconnaissance properly
none of us would have escaped. I can tell you it was terrible and
I tell you that none of that happened in 1993.''
The Australian published its investigation on Jan. 19. Three days
later, Beah released a statement stridently rebutting charges that
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
he embellished his experience. "I was right about my family. I
am right about my story. This is not something one gets wrong.
The Australian's reporters have been calling my college
professors, asking if I 'embellished' my story. They published
my adoptive mother's address, so she now receives ugly threats.
They have used innuendo against me when there is no fact.
Though apparently, they believe anything they are told–unless it
comes from me or supports my account. Sad to say, my story is
all true."
The next day, Gare, Wilson, and Nason issued a 1,000-word
statement of their own, rebutting Beah's rebuttal and pointing
out, among other things, that they published Simms' business
Web site, not personal address. In subsequent weeks, the paper
published 10 more critical articles further challenging facets of A
Long Way Gone.
The reporters have assembled their case by interviewing subjects
who claim that the memoir's most harrowing scenes didn't
happen, or at least not in the gruesome fashion Beah describes.
A Jan. 21 piece states: "A large number of people in Beah's
home region, including a local chief, a Catholic priest, medical
staff at his local hospital, his family's former neighbours, several
local miners and Beah's former school principal have
independently confirmed to The Australian that the attacks he
describes on his home town and region happened in January
1995, not January 1993 as stated in his book." Dan Chaon,
Beah's writing professor from Oberlin College, is paraphrased in
a Jan. 21 piece agreeing that any inaccuracies in A Long Way
Gone should be chalked up to "poetic license." The reporters
also pointed out that Beah began working on his memoir with
Chaon as fiction, suggesting that embellishments remained after
Beah recast the project as nonfiction. A follow-up article on Jan.
25 alleges exaggerations in the map at the beginning of the book.
A piece on Jan. 26 quotes both UNICEF relief workers and
Western journalists who were stationed in Sierra Leone during
the civil war stating that they could not recall the deadly fight in
which six people died at the refugee camp which Beah portrays
in his book. On Feb. 2, Wilson reported that Beah's former
schoolteachers had even located academic documents that prove
Beah was in school in March 1993, months after he claims to
have fled the rebel attack on Mattru Jong.
Despite the allegations, Crichton told me last week that she
remains committed to Beah and the truth of his timeline. "The
conflict started in 1991. There were successive waves of
violence," she says. "That's what Ishmael is writing about."
Crichton dismissed the Australian's recent reports that Beah was
in school in the spring of 1993. "First, the AP sent a reporter to
the school and reported the records were destroyed. Then, the
Australian suddenly said, 'a cache of records proves that Ishmael
was there.' First of all, that's pretty amazing that there are all
these records. Second of all, who are these men? Thirdly, why
did they stay up all night long [looking for the documents]?" she
said. Crichton hypothesized, "Obviously, these guys are being
11/124
paid, they're not doing this out of the goodness of their heart.
And even if they do come up with something, it's the easiest
thing in the world to falsify something like that."
"That's probably defamatory, apart from anything else," Wilson
swiped back. "Does Crichton think the principal is going to take
money? They have no reason to lie. They have goodwill towards
Ishmael. They went through the records as a matter of
hospitality. They were mystified and quite hurt that Ishmael said
he didn't know them."
When I asked Crichton if the conflicting accounts by the
Catholic priest who said he witnessed the only attack on Mattru
Jong in 1995 gave her pause that maybe the book fudged at least
some of the timeline, Crichton said no, that she believed Beah's
narrative to be true. "I have watched [the Australian] publish a
systematic distortion of facts. I have heard from too many people
who were interviewed by them that their words were taken out
of context," she said, citing an aid worker named Leslie Mboka,
a former child soldier named Kabba Williams, and Beah's
writing teacher Dan Chaon as examples. "I have called people in
Sierra Leone, I have done research. I had done research before.
Not one of their articles says that there were sporadic attacks
before 1995. They started with the supposition that the conflict
started then. … They have been cherry-picking their reporting to
such a degree that I don't trust them."
David Nason, the Australian's New York correspondent, fumed
when I told him that Crichton said that he had misquoted Chaon.
Nason showed me an e-mail that he sent Chaon on Jan. 29, after
Chaon had posted a letter and his version of a transcript on an
Australian literary blog. "It seems to me that you guys are
awfully naive in accepting your Murdoch produced 'news' as
gospel," Chaon posted. "Hmmm. Do you think there might be an
agenda in the decision to go after a third world author whose
work is making people aware of human rights abuses in his
country? Something to think about."
Nason e-mailed Chaon in response: "Dan, after 30 years in
journalism I've been called a liar by all kinds of crooked
politicians, corrupt police and shonky businessmen. It goes with
the job," he wrote. "I've also been called a liar by people like you
-- decent, ordinary folk who say things they later regret when
they see the words in print and seek salvation by slagging off the
reporter. This unfortunately goes with the job too. But I've never
in 30 years had anyone actually make up a transcript like you
have and then post it on the web. I know you're a creative
writing professor but this really is taking things to extremes.
Fortunately, I taped our conversation (something I am permitted
to do under New York and Ohio law) so there is absolutely no
doubt about the accuracy of my report, the inaccuracy of your
comments post publication and the fraudulent (and potentially
actionable) nature of your invented transcript."
Last month, FSG rebuffed one of the Australian's claims. Jeff
Seroy, FSG's publicity director, e-mailed me a letter that
Crichton sent to the Australian on Feb. 14 disputing Wilson's
assertion that the map at the beginning of A Long Way Gone
exaggerates the length of Beah's journey. For weeks, the
Australian had claimed Beah himself had sketched out an
inaccurate map used in the book's first edition and hyped the
duration of his journey to support his narrative. Crichton's letter
shows that FSG has fact-checked the locations Beah mentions in
the book, and they check out. "I've been a journalist and a writer
for a long time now," Crichton told me. "I've never seen
anything like this."
The level of vitriol and escalation of rhetoric has surprised both
sides. Clearly, as an objective journalistic exercise, the
Australian reporters have made this personal. The obsessive
nature of their coverage can work against their reporting, but
behind their dogged pursuit of Beah, there are serious questions
about Beah's retelling of his traumatic teenage experiences and
the publishing industry's sole reliance on authors to verify their
memoirs. In marshaling their defense, FSG has cited witnesses
who met Beah after his arrival at the refugee camp, but no
former child soldiers who served directly with Beah have come
forward to back him. Several characters, including a caring nurse
who helped Beah recuperate and find his voice as a storyteller,
haven't been identified at all.
Ultimately, though, the truth of what actually transpired might
be lost in Africa. Crichton herself told me she recognizes the
challenge of re-reporting decade-old events from the fog of one
of Africa's most brutal civil wars. "As people who reported from
Africa know, it tends to be a difficult continent to cover," she
says. "You can't just talk to one person and have your story.
That's not reporting." For his part, Wilson says he is willing to
go to court to prove he is right. "If I'm maliciously inflicting
commercial damage on them, they should sue," he said. "They're
not suing because they know I'm telling the truth. And they're
hoping we'll just go away. So my response is, sue us, and we'll
see you in court."
In August, FSG will release A Long Way Gone in paperback. I
asked Crichton if the paperback edition will carry a disclaimer or
some editorial acknowledgement that the book is based on true
events. "There will absolutely not be a disclaimer," she said. "A
disclaimer is used when you say I've changed names, he hasn't;
moved locales, he hasn't. So, no, there will not be a disclaimer."
dear prudence
It's No Secret
I told a friend her husband was hiding things from her. Now I can't handle the
fallout!
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:18 AM ET
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
12/124
Get "Dear Prudence" delivered to your inbox each week; click
here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to
prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)
Dear Prudence,
My friend and I reconnected just over a year ago after no contact
since high school. We picked up where we left off and started
spending a lot of time together. She married her high-school
sweetheart, and they have a beautiful daughter together. My
boyfriend was telling me that he doesn't want to get married
because all the married guys he knows are miserable and keep
secrets from their wives. Although my friend's husband is not
one of the miserable ones, he did tell my boyfriend a secret he
"keeps from his wife." My boyfriend then threw this in my face
during our marriage discussion, and while venting to my friend
about my boyfriend, I told her. Now I feel terrible because she
wants to know this secret. I don't know what the secret is, but I
regret putting their relationship in turmoil. I also fear this will
affect our friendship. There is no chance that this secret is
infidelity. For all I know, it could be a "secret" surprise for her.
She has grilled her husband, and he assures her that he has no
secrets from her. I have apologized several times for mentioning
it. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't think she would be this upset.
My boyfriend doesn't really remember or know the details of this
"secret." How do I reassure my friend that her husband is not
lying to her and convince her to let it go?
—Secret Spiller
Dear Secret,
Congratulations! In your boyfriend's quest to prove that all
marriages are unhappy and built on deceit, and yours to prove
that your boyfriend is a jerk for holding such views, the two of
you have managed to release a plume of carbon monoxide into
the atmosphere of this happy marriage. Who wouldn't be "this
upset" to be told, "Oh, by the way, your husband is keeping a
secret from you, but don't ask me what it is, and so, anyway, to
get back to my problems …" And since you don't know what the
secret is, how can you reassure her it's not infidelity? (My guess
is the husband confessed he was attracted to someone else. But
who knows?) About the only way you could undo this is if you
were to find out that your boyfriend was fibbing, and there was
no secret—that he made up the story for his own purposes. In the
absence of that confession, there's nothing else you can do, so
stop exacerbating things by continuing to whine about how sorry
you are. I agree that you have damaged, perhaps fatally, this reestablished friendship. But I see one way your friend and her
husband could get back on track: when they unite in agreement
that they're sorry the two of you ever came into their lives.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence Video: Touchy-Feely Father-In-Law
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Dear Prudence,
I'm engaged to the most unromantic man on earth. For
Valentine's Day this year, he bought me a box of wine, garlic
bread (!), and a card that said, "I'm glad you're my wife," which
I'm not—I'm his fiancee of two months. (He obviously didn't
even read the card before he bought it.) For my birthday, I got
$60 in cash. We've never been on a vacation (in four years
together), he's never taken me away for the weekend, he's never
surprised me with dinner reservations to a decent restaurant, and
he has never sent me flowers. I've dropped hints, I've been
direct, I've tried to focus on the positive, and I'm over it. And,
yes, he is financially able to do something nice for me. I, on the
other hand, have put lots of thought and consideration into the
gifts I've given him and the surprise plans I've made for us. I've
considered simply not trying anymore, I've cried, I've written
him a letter letting him know that although I don't need flowers
and chocolates every day, I do need to feel special every once in
a while. How do you convince an otherwise charming guy that
dates and romance do matter?
—Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Dear Actions,
I do find the garlic bread a bold move for Valentine's Day.
Maybe he was making a Shakespeare reference: "And in some
perfumes is there more delight/ Than in the breath that from my
mistress reeks." For the four years you've been with this guy, he
has demonstrated a dunderheaded inability to act like a
conventional boyfriend. Yet you say he is "charming," and you
accepted his proposal. So, if you want to be married to him, and
happily, you must stop thinking of his inability to do romance,
presents, or even vacations as a quirk that needs fixing, because
you can't fix it. Accept that if you want to go on a trip, either you
plan it or you end up staying home breathing garlic on each
other. But decide now if you can live with this, instead of
marrying him, producing a bunch of kids, then heading to
divorce court because for your anniversary he got you a savings
bond.
—Prudie
Dear Prudie,
I have recently accepted a new job and am leaving my employer
of five years. The company has provided me many opportunities,
but I am ready for a greater challenge and a better salary. That is
not, however, the only reason I have decided to move on. The
person who manages my department has been very difficult to
work with. He mismanages the department and on occasion
makes unethical business decisions. Additionally, he has said
inappropriate things that could be construed as sexual
harassment and discrimination. Before I began with the
department, there were seven other women who quit in a threeyear period. I work in an almost exclusively male industry, and
this behavior is often swept under the rug. Many of my friends
whom I have confided in over the years urge me to finally say
13/124
something to the department director before I leave. I have made
past attempts, all of them futile. My friends believe I have a
moral obligation to report the manager so that the next person in
my job won't have to suffer. But I would rather leave on the best
terms. What should I do?
—Resignation Obligation?
Dear Resignation,
You need to examine what you feel obligated to do and what
you feel able to do—and what the consequences are. I talked to
employment attorney Philip Gordon of the Gordon Law Group
in Boston. He said that given your circumstances, you do not
have a legal duty to blow the whistle. But he said that if you go
ahead, you should do so with the knowledge that even though
you are leaving the firm, you could find yourself subject to
retaliation or bad-mouthing within your industry. The law
provides ever-stronger safeguards against such payback, but
Gordon says proving it can be a wrenching process. You have
spoken up over the years to no effect. So, how much attention is
the department director going to give you now that you're on
your way out? To take this on would be an admirable thing, but
you have to want to, and your letter says you don't. If you decide
to leave with just smiles and handshakes, go ahead without
berating yourself. Gordon adds that if another woman comes
along who does take legal action, then you can help her by
making yourself available as a witness.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
My parents are coming up on their 25th wedding anniversary. I
am excited for them and was planning on throwing a small party
for friends and family. My mom got wind of the idea, and now
she wants to throw herself a full-fledged wedding, complete with
cake, dress—the works—because her wedding was not like the
weddings people are having today. I think it's in poor taste—
you've had your day, it's now time to step aside. My siblings say
if she wants another wedding, let her have one. Am I wrong
about this?
—Unsure
Dear Unsure,
With all the advances in obstetrics in the past 25 years, just be
glad your mother doesn't want to call you up in front of the
guests and re-enact your birth. I'm with you that it's somewhat
creepy to watch a long-married couple pretend they're young
again (and I hope your mother doesn't choose one of the "hot
bride" wedding dresses). But I agree with your siblings that if
that's what she wants, keep quiet about it. Remember, since
some guests will find it moving, and others will find it appalling,
everyone will be entertained.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
—Prudie
did you see this?
Women's History ... With Porn Stars
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 2:20 PM ET
dispatches
Dispatches From China's Wild West
Auto parts and furniture, the unromantic trade goods that travel the modern
Silk Road.
By Joshua Kucera
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 10:40 AM ET
From: Joshua Kucera
Subject: China Through the Back Door
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 3:48 PM ET
NEAR THE CHINESE BORDER, Kyrgyzstan—Bundled into
my sleeping bag against the high-altitude chill, unable to sleep, I
peered through the bus window. But there was only darkness. I
was on a 24-hour bus ride through the desolate borderlands
between Kyrgyzstan and China. A combination of harsh
geography and paranoid superpowers—the Soviet Union and
China—discouraged anyone from settling here in the last 90
years, and this road was opened to travelers only in 2002. The
going is still rough. It took us nine hours to travel the 150 miles
from Osh, Kyrgyzstan, to the Chinese border, with only one
roadside "bathroom" stop at 3 a.m.
Whenever I fell into a shallow slumber, I would be jostled
awake by the enormous ruts in the dirt road that constantly
rattled our bus or the glaring headlights of oncoming trucks. But
also contributing to my insomnia were the butterflies in my
stomach as I thought about where I was headed: Kashgar! Closer
to Turkey than Beijing, surrounded in every direction by 20,000foot mountains or harsh desert, for thousands of years it has been
a vibrant but remote outpost on the Silk Road between Europe
and Asia and the very definition of the middle of nowhere.
Kashgar's Silk Road history has made it a popular tourist
destination with Western backpackers and, increasingly, with
Chinese tourists. But it was Kashgar's more recent history that
interested me and drove me to spend the next few weeks
exploring the city and the surrounding province of Xinjiang.
14/124
Xinjiang is the traditional home of the Uighur (pronounced
WEE-gur) people, Muslims who speak a language related to
Turkish and whose European features and olive skin easily
distinguish them from the Han Chinese, who represent more
than 90 percent of the people in China but who are a minority in
this province. China has exerted some sort of influence here for
millenniums, and the Chinese presence has ebbed and flowed—
exactly how much is hotly debated between the Chinese and
Uighurs. Since their first contact, the Uighurs have stubbornly
resisted assimilation.
Now China is making a renewed push to cement its control,
driven by a confluence of geopolitical factors: its mounting
consumption of oil and gas (Xinjiang is home to about one-third
of China's total petroleum reserves), growing fear of Islamist
extremism (Uighurs have been captured in terrorist training
camps in Afghanistan), and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Independence for countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Uzbekistan, whose people are closely related to Uighurs, has
renewed hope among Uighurs and fear in Beijing that Xinjiang,
too, could become an independent state.
Aiming to nip that ambition in the bud, Beijing is cracking down
on the slightest sign of Uighur nationalist sentiment and is
rapidly moving Han Chinese people into Xinjiang in an apparent
effort to change the demographic balance there. Think Tibet, but
without the Dalai Lama or the Beastie Boys.
When we reached the Kyrgyz border station just after dawn, the
bus driver collected 500 Kyrgyz som—about $13—from each
passenger to bribe the border guards. I was exempted, as was the
only other tourist on the bus, a soft-spoken Russian named Ilya
who planned to bicycle to Tibet. The other passengers were
Uzbek or Kyrgyz suitcase traders re-creating a poor man's
version of the Silk Road. They were on their way to buy cheap
Chinese clothes and electronics they would then sell in their
ruined post-Soviet hometowns, and they were at the mercy of the
border guards.
We lined up inside the border post, our breaths visible in the
unlit room, the wooden floor creaking under our feet. For an
extra 100 som, the Kyrgyz guards gave us the option of
purchasing a piece of paper declaring that we did not have
AIDS. This, it was stressed, was optional, but we were warned
that the Chinese border guards might ask for it. All the traders
bought one, and on their recommendation Ilya did, too.
Naturally, the "certification" was made without the benefit of a
medical examination. When it was my turn in line, the guard
simply noted my American passport and smiled. It was Sept. 11,
and in fair English he said he was sorry about what happened six
years earlier. He didn't even offer me a certificate.
Of course, on the Chinese side of the border no one asked for my
AIDS papers. After lengthy border procedures and several hours
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
of traveling through a barren, rocky landscape of reds and
browns, we reached Kashgar after dark.
Far from the remote outpost of my imagination, Kashgar was a
dynamic city with new, wide, and well-lit streets and batterypowered mopeds humming by noiselessly. The city's taxis were
metered—something that, after several months of haggling with
Azeri, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz hacks while traveling through the
former Soviet Union, seemed the height of modernity. Neon
signs greeted me in Chinese and a brand of English with which I
would soon become very familiar: "WELCOME TO
KASHGAR. THE TOUR WITHOUT KASHGAR IS NOT
CONSIDERED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN XINJIANG."
In the morning, though, it was easier to see Kashgar's character
through the sleek veneer it has acquired over the last few years.
Sure, too many of the buildings in the ancient city center are
new, obviously cheap knockoffs of Kashgar's traditional, bricked
Islamic architecture. And, yes, the street commerce that has
existed here for thousands of years has now been overwhelmed
by tourist kitsch (miniature Uighur lutes, engraved teapots with
"Made in Pakistan" stamped across the bottom). But the spirit
was still there. Groups of bearded men in embroidered fourcornered skullcaps sipped scalding-hot tea out of bowls in dark
teahouses, and women in bright multicolored silk dresses bought
vegetables from carts in the narrow alleys.
Kashgar is one of the most heavily Uighur cities in China.
According to official figures, just 10 percent of its people are
Han, but more and more Chinese people are arriving. Han are
heavily overrepresented in government jobs—most policemen,
for example, are Chinese, including the ones, posted in the
sparkling-clean pedestrian underpasses, who sit in front of backlit propaganda posters, which declaim, in Chinese and Uighur:
A stable Kashgar is my responsibility,
A friendly and open Kashgar is my
responsibility,
A harmonious Kashgar is my responsibility.
And in case there is any doubt about who is in charge, a 59-foot
statue of Mao Zedong, one of the largest in China, dominates the
vast main square.
After a short stroll, I got a haircut in a shop decorated with the
same placards you see throughout the Middle East—posters of
praying cherubs in front of the Kabaa in Mecca. Included in the
price of the haircut (about 75 cents) was a quick but efficient
massage. Invigorated, I set out to find a translator and guide.
The first man I met, a friend of a friend of a friend, was nervous.
The first thing he said to me was, "If you are a writer, I think it's
better to stay away from you." (I was afraid even to utter the
word journalist—because of its political sensitivity, Xinjiang is
15/124
off-limits even to credentialed journalists, unless they have
special permission, and I was posing as a tourist.) "But call me
in an hour or so, and I'll see if I can find something," he said,
vaguely.
Five minutes later, he found me and explained that he had
watched me walk away and hadn't seen anyone following me. So
we stopped for a tea and he explained that over the last year, the
police had tightened their grip on all types of political activities
and he didn't want to risk being seen with a journalist. "But call
this guy," he said, scribbling down a cell phone number. "He'll
help you."
From: Joshua Kucera
Subject: Ramadan in China
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 7:49 AM ET
KASHGAR, China—It was the first day of Ramadan, and
although Ali, my translator, was fasting, I wasn't. He was a good
sport about finding me a place to eat lunch, though. He took me
to a couple of Muslim-owned restaurants, but both turned out to
be closed for the holiday. I proposed Chinese food instead, but
Ali refused even to consider the possibility.
"Have you ever eaten Chinese food?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I never eat food made by nonbelievers—it's
unclean." But what if he were to come to America and I invited
him over for dinner? Would he eat what I cooked? He changed
the subject and took me to Best Food, a Chinese hamburger
chain, which, even though it appeared to be staffed exclusively
by Chinese workers, was apparently acceptable because it
represented Western cultural encroachment into Kashgar.
Chinese encroachment, to Ali and most Uighurs here, is an
entirely different matter.
Although nominally "autonomous," Xinjiang is anything but.
The Chinese government restricts the use of the Uighur
language, has closed many mosques and monitors clerics, and
gives preferential treatment to the Han Chinese who migrate
here in increasing numbers. The situation has only gotten worse
since Sept. 11. China has used the specter of Islamist terrorism
to crack down on every form of Uighur political activity.
(Washington bears some small responsibility for this: To enlist
Chinese support in the "war on terror," the State Department put
one shadowy Uighur organization on its list of terrorist groups, a
fact that China frequently trumpets as it cracks down on
Uighurs, terrorists or otherwise.)
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
A proud Uighur nationalist, "Ali"—not his real name—was in
his early 20s. Short and thin, he wore the same black T-shirt,
black jeans, and black dress shoes during the three days I spent
with him. He spoke Chinese poorly and had taught himself
English. He didn't go to university, which he blamed on the
Chinese government's racism.
I told him I was surprised to see how developed Kashgar was.
"The Uighurs are just keeping these roads and buildings for the
Chinese," he replied. "More and more Chinese are coming here,
and they have skills we don't. We're getting poorer and poorer,
and eventually we're going to end up as their slaves."
As we sat in the plastic booth while I ate my spicy chicken
sandwich and fries and Ali watched, I asked whether there was
any special TV programming for Ramadan. I knew many
Muslim countries rolled out big miniseries for the holiday. "No,
it's the opposite here," he said. "I think the government puts on
movies with kissing and things like that, especially during
Ramadan."
After lunch, Ali and I went to a government-run factory where
Uighurs mass-produced their traditional hats, clothes, and
musical instruments to sell to tourists. We stopped in the rug
showroom, where the friendly Chinese assistants offered us
chrysanthemum tea. I had some, but Ali declined. They insisted,
and he had to explain that he couldn't drink anything until
sundown. Although they lived in a city that was 90 percent
Muslim, they didn't know that Ramadan had started.
Next, we headed to the Id Kah mosque, built in 1442, the center
of Kashgar life since then. Ali explained that the plaza in front of
the mosque used to be crowded with food stalls, flower gardens,
and a huge clock tower. All are now gone, victims of
government "renovation." Instead, a huge JumboTron screen
now shows kung fu and other Chinese movies every night.
We passed through the mosque's yellow-brick archway, into its
cool courtyard, thick with shade trees, where small groups of
men were chatting quietly. Ali pointed to a glass-enclosed sign
addressed to tourists in Chinese, Uighur, and English. "First, you
should read this nonsense," he said. By "nonsense," he was
referring not to their tortured verbiage (his English was curious
enough; for example, he called handicrafts "manual dexterity of
the people") but to their aggressively political content.
After a couple of vague sentences about the mosque's early
history, the text turned to a lengthy description of the
Communist Chinese government's restoration efforts, including
its construction, in 1983, of a "modern public bathroom."
"All of it shows fully," the sign continued, "that Chinese
government always pays special attentions to the another and
historical cultures of the ethnic groups, and that all ethnic groups
16/124
warmly welcome Part[y]'s religious policy. … All ethnic groups
live friendly together here. They cooperate to build a beautiful
homeland, support heartily the unity of different ethnic groups
and the unity of our country, and oppose the ethnic separatism
and illegal religious activities." There were similar rah-rah
messages at the 17th-century mausoleum of a Uighur holy man
and at Pan Tuo City, a brand-new monument on the outskirts of
town that commemorates the Chinese conquest, in the first
century, of the territory that would later become Xinjiang.
The politicization of Kashgar's historic sites has been
accompanied by a similar commercialization. To tour the most
intact neighborhood of traditional Muslim homes—which stood
in for 1970s Kabul in the movie The Kite Runner—you must pay
a $4 entrance fee. The money goes to a private company owned
by a Chinese businessman. Families who live in the
neighborhood receive some money in exchange for allowing
tourists to roam around their houses, but it's a pittance, one
elderly couple complained. "And they don't do anything to
improve the neighborhood, either," the woman told me, as we
talked in the courtyard of her charming, but crumbling, home. Of
course, that would negate the whole purpose. According to the
brochure I was handed as I entered, "By visiting the old town,
you will feel like you are in the middle ages."
By dinner time, Ali was unable to talk about anything except the
exact time the sun would go down. We found a Uighur
restaurant, where the large majority of patrons were Han.
(However they may feel about Uighurs, Chinese people do love
Uighur food.) Ali had several long conversations with the
waitress about exactly when it would be time to eat, made three
cell phone calls to the same effect, and went outside twice to
check on the downward progress of the sun.
At last, the time came, and our waitress brought Ali a bowl of
water, which he gulped down. He did the same with another one,
and then he asked for a bigger bowl. We'd been walking in the
heat all day, and I tallied up the liquid I'd drunk: a supersized
Coke at Best Food, a couple of bottles of water, tea at the rug
shop, and several other cups along the way. The waitress
brought Ali a piece of bread, which he scarfed down, and I
noticed several members of the waitstaff discreetly chewing on
their own pieces of bread.
After dinner, we went to what was supposed to be a performance
of traditional muqam music, but it turned out to be an
appallingly minstrelized version of Uighur culture. The show
included a song called "Kashgar," lip-synced in Chinese by a
Wayne Newton-esque crooner against a painted backdrop of a
fantasy Kashgar. The backdrop included the clock tower—
demolished five years earlier—and, behind it, a skyline filled
with Shanghai-like skyscrapers, presumably a vision of
Kashgar's future.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
I was surprised that Ali had wanted to take me to the show, since
it seemed to be the epitome of all the offenses to his culture he'd
been complaining about all day. In all the museums, historic
sites, government propaganda, and monuments, Uighurs were
always smiling widely, dressed in traditional clothes, and they
were often singing or dancing—they were never portrayed as
statesmen, scholars, or war heroes. It was pretty easy to read
between the lines: Yes, the Uighurs are fun-loving and
charming, but they're a bit primitive and certainly not capable of
ruling themselves.
Leaving the show, my head spinning, I tried to explain all this to
Ali. He paused for a second and said: "But I like to dance."
His failure to take offense at the show confused me, and I kept
thinking about it long after I left Xinjiang. A couple of months
later, when I returned home, I met Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur
activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee who now lives in the
United States. I told her the story of the muqam show and asked
her about Ali's response.
"Uighurs do feel the insult, but they're used to those kinds of
insults. Maybe he couldn't find another place where true Uighur
songs were sung. Muqam exists only in name now—it's slowly
disappearing, and you don't see a lot of singers anymore. So at
least in that place you see Uighurs singing songs," she said.
"This is a time of confusion for Uighurs. We live in fear, we
can't speak what is in our hearts, moral values have changed, and
that's why we can't see things clearly. We're not the Uighurs of
before."
From: Joshua Kucera
Subject: China's Oil Boom
Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:56 AM ET
KORLA, China—It was morning when I arrived in Korla, the
capital of Xinjiang's oil boom, and the sky was dark, the sun
obscured by a thick cloud of dust from the adjacent Taklamakan
Desert. Many people on the street wore masks against the dust—
the Chinese favored surgical-style versions, while many Uighur
women wore delicate white cotton masks with lace trim.
Most of the inhabited parts of Xinjiang are dotted around the
Taklamakan, an utterly lifeless expanse larger than Colorado
whose name, roughly translated, means "Go in and don't come
out." It is a graveyard for countless Silk Road caravans and was
17/124
one of the last unexplored frontiers on the planet—the first time
anyone crossed it the longer, east-west way was in 1993. These
days, rather than being an obstacle, the Taklamakan is the
attraction. Oil was discovered here in the 1950s, and over the
last decade, China's speeding economy has created an oil rush in
Xinjiang.
Whatever Third Worldliness persists in Kashgar has been driven
out of sight here in Korla, the home of the PetroChina Tarim
Basin Oil Control Center, which operates the Taklamakan oil
fields. The neatly laid-out downtown boasts meticulously tended
parks bursting with orange and yellow carnations. In the course
of just one day, I saw two free performances of Chinese opera in
small outdoor theaters, elderly women doing a synchronized folk
dance, and a blood drive. It was all incredibly wholesome.
At Eversun, a Chinese coffee shop chain with a five-star-hotellobby vibe and piped-in Michael Bolton, I met a former top city
official I'll call Mr. Yi. He explained that Korla's tidiness is not
an accident. In fact, the Chinese government has named Korla
China's cleanest city, and Korla has made the countrywide
rankings in the "most charming," "best relations between the
army and public," and even "best overall city" categories.
"The government pays a lot of attention to this. It took us five
years to win the title of cleanest city," he said. The city's efforts
included deputizing retirees to patrol street corners, bus stations,
and other public places to issue on-the-spot fines (of a little less
than $1) to citizens found tossing cigarette butts or engaging in
China's national pastime, spitting. It worked so well, he said, the
fines are no longer necessary—people in Korla have been
trained not to spit. And he seemed to be right: To my great relief,
Korla's men did seem to manage their saliva.
Yi grew up in Korla in the 1960s, just after oil was discovered in
the Taklamakan. "Then, it was like a village. The roads were
dirt, and you could see donkeys and carts everywhere. There
weren't very many people, and the minorities were a much
bigger part of the population. It was a lot more Muslim," he said.
The city's population is now 430,000, and it's growing by an
additional 20,000 people every year, he told me. The central
government encourages people to come to Korla by relaxing
land-use rules, offering tax breaks for businesses, and making it
easier to acquire residency permits. "When businessmen come
here and see that this is a nice and clean city, they think that the
people here must be good," he said.
Of course, as in Kashgar, most of the migrants are Han Chinese,
and this urban renewal is pushing out Uighurs. Yi claimed it's
not intentional: "We need development from outside Xinjiang.
Almost all the businessmen in China are Han Chinese, so there
is no choice. That's just the reality," he said.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Later I met Michael Manning, a 27-year-old New Jersey native
who moved to Korla in 2005 to work as an English teacher and
is now setting up a business exporting sun-dried tomatoes. He
also documents life in Xinjiang on his excellent blog, The
Opposite End of China. Despite taboos about talking about
Uighur nationalism and separatism, Manning manages to broach
those topics regularly without any apparent protest from the
authorities. "A significant portion of the population isn't
benefiting at all from this newfound wealth," he wrote in one
post. "More disturbing―and perhaps dangerous for Xinjiang―is
the fact that Uighurs are almost completely excluded from the
oil boom. I can't even think of a single Uighur I've met whose
employment is related to the petrochemical industry in any way.
Obviously, this breeds resentment in those people still living in
mud-brick huts, which are frequently demolished to build
another garish new apartment complex."
"I have no idea why I haven't been kicked out yet," he told me.
He offered to show me around Korla's Uighur district. It's just a
couple of blocks from the shopping centers and parks where I'd
been spending my time, but crossing over to its unpaved streets,
mud houses, and chaos is like leaving San Diego for Tijuana.
We passed horribly deformed beggars, a butcher shop with a
whole skinned sheep hanging outside the door, and a whitebearded street musician with a sort of Uighur lute.
Manning said that in the last year he has seen used syringes
around the Uighur town. Hashish was a common drug; now
heroin is becoming more popular. Several of Michael's Uighur
friends do drugs, but he doesn't know any Chinese people in
Korla who do.
We stopped to visit a friend of Manning's who has a shop in the
old town. He said he expects that his shop will be torn down
soon to make room for new development, and he doesn't think
he'll be able to set up shop again in this neighborhood. "I won't
be able to get a new business license—in all the newly
developed parts of the city, the licenses are too expensive. So,
I'll probably have to move to a village," he said.
"I have no problem with development, but it's the Chinese who
get all the benefits," he said. "The government is always talking
about how all the nationalities in China are like one big family,
but the reality is that the Chinese don't want anything to do with
us, especially with the Uighurs. They don't want to work with us,
do business with us, be friends with us."
All over the margins of the old town, new 20-story buildings are
going up, and the city is extending a pleasant concrete riverside
promenade, where I had seen one of the Chinese operas, into the
Uighur part of town. In one week alone, two old Uighur
restaurants had been bulldozed to make way for the promenade,
Manning said.
18/124
"The government likes to use Korla as an example of what
Xinjiang could be—rich, clean, and harmonious," he said. "The
vision is for it to be the Houston of China, and they want a big
shiny city, not these dirty old houses."
From: Joshua Kucera
Subject: The New Silk Road
Posted Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 10:40 AM ET
URUMQI, China—Walking into the Bian Jiang Hotel in Urumqi
was a bit like stepping into a post-Soviet version of the Star
Wars cantina scene. Every variety of Russian and Central Asian
hustler was there: dark-skinned, mustached men in leather
jackets; blond Russian women in track pants and midriff-baring
T-shirts; Uzbek women with black eyes and flowing,
multicolored dresses. The clocks behind the reception desk didn't
bother to display the time in London or New York, or even
Beijing, but they showed eight time zones across the former
Soviet Union, from Baku to Novosibirsk.
After two weeks in China, where I was completely at sea with
the language, I was thrilled to be in a place where I could
communicate unaided in basic Russian. In the coffee shop, I
struck up a conversation with a trio of middle-aged, gold-toothed
Uzbek women at the table next to me. But they weren't
interested in chitchat and immediately got down to business:
"So, do you want a girl?" one asked.
Over the last 15 years, Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, has
developed into the main hub of a gritty, 21 st-century Silk Road
that has emerged out of the ruins of the Soviet Union. Under the
Soviet Union's planned economy, almost all its international
trade, even from the far reaches of the empire, was conducted
through Moscow. But with the collapse of the USSR, countries
like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan—and cities in
eastern Russia—are doing more and more of their business with
neighboring China.
That trade has changed the face of Urumqi, an undistinguished
city of gray concrete high rises and a freeway system whose
decrepitude reminded me of Detroit. Signs in Russian—the
lingua franca of the former Soviet states—were everywhere, and
when I walked into shops I was greeted with "Zdrastvuitye"
more often than "Hello."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
The goods traded these days are a good deal less romantic than
the silk, gold, and ivory of the original Silk Road. Urumqi's
streets are filled with Russian-language signs advertising auto
parts and construction supplies. A mall next to the Bian Jiang
sells cheap Chinese clothes, MP3 players, and cell phones at
wholesale prices to buyers from Russia and Central Asia.
The Hualin Market, a massive furniture and building-materials
emporium, is one of the top destinations for shoppers from
Central Asia. It has five floors, in ascending order of luxury: The
first floor is a chaotic, jumbled mess of couches shrink-wrapped
in plastic and coffee tables stacked on top of one another. By the
fourth and fifth floors, though, it looks like an upscale American
shopping mall.
I stopped into one shop on the fourth floor, where a Kazakh
woman wearing white, fringed-leather boots shopped among the
$2,500 couches. A shop assistant served me a paper cup of green
tea and talked about the clientele of the shop. More than half of
visitors are from Central Asia, mainly Kazakhstan, where the oil
boom has spurred the growth of a large middle class. The
Central Asian market is growing so much, Fang Wei said, that
Hualin is planning to open a branch in Almaty, the biggest city
in Kazakhstan. She said she only speaks a few words of
Russian—hello, goodbye, and the names of several types of
furniture—but all the Central Asian shoppers hire their own
Chinese translators.
Today, because the industries of most former Soviet states are
largely ruined and the countries have little to export, the trade is
pretty one-sided. In 2006, for example, Chinese exports to
Kyrgyzstan were 150 times greater than the trade in the other
direction. The only commodities China imports in large
quantities from Central Asia are heroin, which comes from
Afghanistan via Tajikistan, and oil and natural gas, mainly from
Kazakhstan, the only country in the region with which China has
something resembling a balance of trade.
Trade between Xinjiang and Central Asian has evolved since the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, one government trade
expert told me on condition that I not use his name. The first
wave consisted of small-time traders buying low-quality clothes
and other consumer goods, but as Russia and Kazakhstan grow
richer on oil money, and China produces higher-quality
products, Chinese exports now include cars and heavy
machinery. Trade between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan totaled $6
billion in 2005, and Xinjiang's total international trade has
increased from less than $1 billion in 1996 to an estimated $9
billion last year.
"Now, more people in university study Russian than English
here, and the ones who study Russian are hired even before they
graduate," he said. In 2004, flights from Urumqi to Moscow,
Almaty, and Tashkent were only weekly; now there are daily
flights to those cities, as well as direct flights from Urumqi to
19/124
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and
several cities in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
Today, only 1 percent of trade between Europe and China travels
by land—some key roads in Central Asia are unpaved, and the
Soviet Union created its railroads on a different gauge from
neighboring countries, necessitating time-consuming transfers
over borders into China and Europe. Hoping to reduce the cost
and duration of transcontinental travel, China and the European
Union are floating a variety of projects to create new, efficient
transportation corridors that would pass straight through
Xinjiang. In November 2007, the Asian Development Bank
announced an $18 billion program to create six new highways
linking Europe and Asia, four of which would pass through
Xinjiang.
They highway project was billed as a "modern day Silk Road,"
and it looks like the hustlers at the Bian Jiang and the shoppers
at Hualin are merely the pioneers.
dispatches
Trade-Offs
Is China the key to Africa's development?
By Eliza Barclay
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:17 AM ET
ARUSHA, Tanzania—Inside a dark shop opposite a frenetic bus
station, transistor radios are stacked beneath newfangled LED
flashlights and belts hang like snakes from the ceiling, their
buckles emblazoned with the decidedly un-African word
Guangzhou. Outside, in the equatorial sunshine, men who
crowded inside the store become mobile versions of it, strapping
to their backs 4-foot-wide square racks interlaced with watches,
wallets, belts, and other items.
A lanky young vendor whom I'll call Charles walks miles to the
city's outskirts shouldering a weighty rack of trinkets, hoping to
unload it along the way. Charles, who asked that his real name
not be used because it's illegal to vend in the city center, hawks
plastic watches for 40 cents and leather belts for $1.80, but his
sales are consistent, and on a good day he takes home $45 in
earnings. What is impressive about Charles' operation is not only
the low, low prices of the Chinese goods he sells but that he
brings them to people in the slums who've never bought these
things before.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
"These new Chinese products help low-income people because
they can't afford the European or American stuff," says Mr.
Abasi, who owns the store that supplies Charles and other
vendors. "People know these products are not good quality, but
they buy them because they look expensive."
While the United States and Europe still loom large here as
cultural and economic icons, China is making inroads into
Africa in rivulets. In this city, Tanzania's second largest, the
rivulets take the form of manufactured goods, construction
projects like roads and cell-phone towers, and a smattering of
Chinese restaurants. For a desperately poor country like
Tanzania, this "South-South" trade with China has created
massive new opportunities for accelerating economic
development.
In recent years, the increase in trade flows between sub-Saharan
Africa and Asia has been dramatic—exports from Asia to Africa
have grown at an annual rate of 18 percent since 2002. Part of
the equation is that low-cost goods from China fit economies
like Tanzania's well. Goods like those sold by Charles are lowquality and sometimes fake, but they are creating new
microenterprise opportunities for entrepreneurial Africans.
Charles told me he, like many other Arusha vendors who had
regular jobs before going independent, worked in a shoe shop
until he was laid off.
The new opportunities to trade with China are so tantalizing for
Africans that some are returning from abroad to invest in their
homelands. Georgine Spake is an elegant, tall Congolese woman
who speaks English with a thick French accent and lives in the
leafy suburbs of Washington, D.C., with her American husband
and four children. Upon visiting her birthplace of Kinshasa last
June, after a nine-year hiatus, Spake told me she was
dumbfounded to discover that most of her friends and family
were traveling to and from China to do business. Lured by the
promise of turning her own respectable profit, Spake flew to the
bustling manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, China, to investigate
import opportunities with a cousin who was already importing
security cameras and telephones. She stayed for a month, paying
a Congolese man who lived there $150 to be her translator and
fixer throughout her stay. By the end, she arranged for the
shipment of 30 tons of garlic to be sold at wholesale in Kinshasa.
She chose garlic, she said, because there has been great demand
for it since the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which
traditionally cultivated garlic and onions, fell prey to conflict.
According to Spake, Guangzhou was swarming with Africans.
Each night, many of them congregated at a bar called the
Elephant, where African musicians and dancers performed.
There she exchanged business tips in hushed tones with
Senegalese, Cameroonians, and Zimbabweans, as their local
handlers hovered nearby to prevent their clients from being
poached by other handlers.
20/124
Spake now communicates with a Chinese partner by e-mail and
phone and plans to return to Guangzhou this June to arrange
more shipments of garlic and, perhaps, tomato paste.
Though the trade balance between China and Africa is heavily
weighted toward Chinese exports, Africa's exports to China grew
by 48 percent annually between 1999 and 2004, according to the
World Bank. Just as it has grown ravenous for Sudan's oil and
the DRC's gold, China is discovering Tanzania's natural
resources. In the southern coastal region, Chinese companies are
buying millions of dollars' worth of indigenous hardwood logs to
feed China's construction and furniture industries, which supply
companies like IKEA with products. Nonprofit organizations
that monitor the trade in illicit goods have tracked the flow of
ivory from and through Tanzania to China.
But as China's investments grow increasingly hard to resist, the
fast-flowing trade is ripe for corruption in weak African states
like Tanzania. A report released in May 2007 by TRAFFIC
International, a joint program of the WWF and IUCN—the
World Conservation Union, found that Tanzania had lost $58
million in timber revenue to corruption, in part because the
majority of the timber sales were illegal. Most of the benefits
from the trade were lumped among a select few groups with
little trickling down to the communities living closest to the
forests.
One way to ensure that local communities benefit from the
logging is to process timber products on African soil before
exporting them, says Rogers Malimbwi, a professor of natural
resources at Sokoine University in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania's
timber sector is beginning to build mills to process the timber,
but much of it still leaves the country as intact logs, he said.
Meanwhile, African consumers are also beginning to experience
the ugly side of trading with China, a lesson Americans learned
all too well last year with the massive recalls of Chinese-made
dog food and toys. In October 2007, counterfeit electrical
equipment from China caused fatal electrical fires in Dar es
Salaam, the country's commercial capital, according to the
Confederation of Tanzania Industries, which called for a
crackdown on counterfeits.
"The Chinese medicines are making people sick, and the
electrical wires are not safe," said Spake. "But China is giving
the African people a chance to do business and make more
money, and for some people that means being able to buy food
to eat."
dispatches
Monger Me, Obama!
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
The mood in Texas.
By Meghan O'Rourke
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 5:37 PM ET
SAN ANGELO, Texas—On Friday, I stood in the crowd at
Barack Obama's San Antonio rally next to a gray-haired man
reading Ficino's Platonic Theology in Latin. Beside him, a young
interracial couple—which felt like the norm, rather than the
exception, in the audience—hugged as Stevie Wonder played
over the loudspeakers. The Verizon Wireless Center had a
charged feel, and not just because of the rotation of soul songs
blasting around us: Most of the rally-goers had waited for half an
hour in a line that snaked to the edge of the parking lot while the
flat light of the setting sun sliced the wide sky.
Even the cities in Texas have a quality of open space. At the
rally, that quality translated into precisely the type of civic
openness that Obama has advocated for throughout his
campaign. The audience was talkative, friendly, and multiracial;
earlier, everyone had held hands and prayed. The neo-Platonist
said that Obama reminded him of Bobby Kennedy, the kind of
figure able to inspire audiences to political action. He didn't
understand Hillary's attacks on Obama's optimistic rhetoric, or
the press's skepticism about it. What was wrong, exactly, with
using language to inspire a crowd to vote, to care about their
civil liberties? Talking about policy details wouldn't get them to
the polls. Inspiring them would. On my right, a young black man
screamed when Obama entered the amphitheatre, and he rushed
over to greet him; he came back pumping his fist and saying,
"He shook my hand!" I'd expected such latter-day Beatlemania,
but two things surprised me: First, the excitement wasn't based
on gender in the way I'd come to expect. (If anything, the guys
seemed more excited than the ladies.) Second, the energy was
far more sober than the reports of Obama fever had led me to
believe.
I've been living in Texas for two months, mostly in Marfa, a
small town in the western part of the state where ranchers and
artists happily coexist; over the past weeks, I've driven across
Texas talking in a casual way with people about what they think
of the Democratic primary taking place tomorrow. Nearly
everyone I've spoken to has said they believe Obama will win. In
Austin, a trendy store not far from the University of Texas was
selling "Barack Obama is Good!" T-shirts. A few in the women's
large size were left, but the men's had nearly sold out. On a plane
from Houston to Austin, I talked to an ex-Navy diver who was
planning to vote for McCain: He hoped that Hillary would win
the primary, but thought it unlikely, because Obama had seized
the imagination of so many voters. ("What do you think he really
believes?" he asked me. "I can't tell.)
Meanwhile, a middle-aged gas station attendant in the small
town of Brady reluctantly exposed his feelings about Hillary.
"She scares me like the devil," he said, slowly. A Republican, he
21/124
didn't like talking about his politics to anyone, he said, and then
added that he thought that the "Osama—Osama Bin Laden"
fellow had some good ideas: for example, about how CEOs
shouldn't make in 10 minutes what workers make in a year (a
line from Obama's stump speech). The most striking thing to
me—a lifetime New Englander—is just how independentminded Texas voters see themselves as being. It's a live-and-letlive attitude that extends from coffee to politics. ("I don't listen
to the radio. I don't read the newspapers. I don't watch TV," a
man in a coffee shop in San Angelo told me.)
It's a common critique of Obama that his followers have become
messianic—that the candidacy is built on little more than the
man's Lincoln-esque charisma and the soft hucksterism of
"hope." While a cult of personality clearly has sprung up around
the guy—and watching him perform, you can see why—the
irony is that Obama's actual message is more demanding (if not
more detail-oriented) than that of any other candidate I can
remember. What makes people excited, it seemed to me at the
San Antonio rally, was the invitation Obama issued to the crowd
to participate in what was to come. He wasn't telling them what
he and Washington would do for them, and he wasn't
complaining; he just said, we want you to think, we want you to
volunteer, we want you to vote. What made folks go wild was
the way that Obama demands something of his audience by
reminding them that this is a bottom-up rather than top-down
enterprise.
to a place of calm empowerment (there's really no other word for
it), mostly by seeming to talk to them about the choices they
were going to make about their own futures, rather than by
merely telling them to choose him. "Some people call us hopemongers," he began, about to explain why this was a false
charge, when the young black man next to me shouted out
"Monger me, Obama!" And there it was: the power Obama has
to speak to those who need hope more than they trust
experience.
For all these reasons, though, Obama is susceptible to the larger
counternarratives being used against him—that he is a Muslim, a
Communist, and (with more grounding) that he has little practice
at policy-making. In the coffee shop in San Angelo—a city
anchored by its Air Force base—where I've been working, a
conversation broke out about whether Obama is a Muslim, and,
if so, whether it matters. Last night, lightning flickered along the
edges of eastern and central Texas, bringing with it thunder and
hailstorms.
drink
Could a Coffee Maker Be Worth
$11,000?
How the Clover is changing the way we think about coffee.
The most recent polls in Texas suggest that Hillary is closing the
gap Obama had widened over the past few weeks in taking the
lead. Over the weekend, the polls showed a dead heat, with both
candidates at 47 percent of the votes. One thing that may work
against Obama in a state like Texas, with a strong military
presence where security matters to many of the independent
voters, who can vote in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, is
that it's actually very hard to convey with short quotes the
breadths of Obama's speeches. The effect depends almost
entirely on the nature of the relationship he develops with his
audience. It's a lot like being in church with a smart, educated
minister gently reminding you that it's possible to lead a richer
and more generous life. What TV sound bites don't quite capture
is the careful way Obama splices the measured rhetoric of a
Harvard Law grad with the oratorical energies of the black
church. The campaign speech (in its current incarnation) is not a
frenzy-whipping peroration. On the contrary, it's a challenge to
listeners to step up to the plate and to put aside tired oppositions
that have bogged the nation down. Sure, it's short on specifics.
But the way he calmly deconstructs old binaries is impressive.
And it jolts you into thinking that sometimes a rut is just a rut,
not a road.
The morning of the San Antonio rally, Hillary released her nowinfamous "Red Phone" ad, and Obama responded during his
speech by stressing that it was judgment, not just experience,
that matters. By now, he'd worked the crowd not to a frenzy but
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
By Paul Adams
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:58 AM ET
The New York Times used words like "cult object," "majestic,"
and "titillating"; the Economist called it "ingenious" and "sleek."
The subject of these encomiums is, incongruously, a commercial
coffee machine—the Clover 1s, an $11,000 device that brews
regular coffee (not espresso) one cup at a time. Could the Clover
represent that much of an advance in the state of the coffee art? I
had to try it for myself.
I convinced the manufacturer, Coffee Equipment Company, to
send me a demo model, but they didn't tell me, until the machine
was already en route to my apartment, that it requires a fist-sized
30-amp commercial electric outlet. So that option didn't work
out: The crated-up machine and a massive grinder sat
tantalizingly unused in my building for a week, then went back.
Fortunately, David Latourell, a company representative who
flew from Seattle to meet with me, had pull at Cafe Grumpy, a
Manhattan cafe that owns two of the machines. After hours, as
the last customers finished their cups and left, the long-haired,
fast-talking Seattleite and I wedged ourselves behind Grumpy's
coffee bar, and I had my chance to play with a Clover at last.
The Clover is so eyebrow-raisingly expensive because it's not
mass-produced: Each device is built to order by a small Seattle
22/124
company. It brews coffee like a French press, but it's more
dramatic to watch and much more precise. Unlike lesser
methods of making coffee, which are no more reliable than their
users and can't be counted on to produce the same cup twice, the
Clover is equipped with a "PID algorithm" for regulating
temperature and "programmable workflow modes" to help
micromanage the brewing process. Latourell enumerates six
variables that contribute to the taste of brewed coffee—choice of
bean, grind, "dose" of coffee, brewing time, temperature, and
amount of water. The first three, for better or worse, are in the
hands of the barista ("Call me when you get a better grinder!"
Latourell half-teases the Grumpy staff)—but the Clover can
precisely regulate the last three.
prescribes a coarser grind for the next cup, explaining to the
baristas hovering near us that "counterintuitively, broadening the
grind profile adds body!"
The faceplate of the Clover is reminiscent of a high-end stereo
and, with a gleaming stainless-steel surface and blue LED
readout, is clearly designed to embody a similar tweaky-geeky
aesthetic. A big, black knob allows me to navigate the
configuration options and dial in each cup's specifications: I
choose 16 ounces of water at 203 degrees Fahrenheit for 44
seconds—relatively brief compared with the few minutes a
French press takes.
I'm becoming a Clover addict, just as I feared. It's not the tasty
coffee itself that's drawing me in—although that caffeine
euphoria certainly colors my mood. It's the joy of tinkering,
really delving into the possibilities of a coffee bean in a way I've
never considered before. After several more cups, each with
their own quirks, it's time to go: The baristas have finished
sweeping up around our feet and are clearly eager to leave. But
there's one more cup I want to try: I dial in the same settings that
produced cup No. 2, the greatest success so far. Forty-four
seconds later, there it is, the exact same delicate, floral-scented
brew I remember. That's the consistency you pay for.
When I press the "Brew" button, a circular platform sinks down
from the top of the machine into a steamy cylindrical operating
chamber. I'm sure I'm not the first Clover user to experience a
quick flashback to a vivid childhood memory—watching,
horrified, as Darth Vader lowers Han Solo into his carbonite
freezer. I have just a couple of seconds to pour a measure of
coffee into the chamber before the built-in spigot activates and
spurts exactly 16 ounces of hot water onto the grounds. The
coffee steeps for the programmed 44 seconds, and then, like a
French press in reverse, the platform rises, pushing the grounds
back up to the surface. As it ascends, a vacuum separates the
liquid from the grounds, sucking the brewed coffee down
through a micro-perforated filter and into the hidden depths of
the machine. By the time the platform returns to its original
position (flush with the machine's top), all that's left on it is a
tightly compressed puck of wet grounds, which I squeegee into a
waste bin. A second press of the master button dispenses the
coffee from the front of the machine.
Stationed at the Clover, I spend two hours and a $50 pound of
good beans trying to make the coffee sing, to achieve the cup of
my dreams.
The first cup has a muddy, dark taste with too much roasted
flavor, although the butterscotch richness of the beans comes
through. For the second cup, I keep the brewing time and the
ratio of water to coffee the same, but I dial the temperature up
from 203 degrees to 206 degrees. Immediately there's a
difference: This one is far closer to perfect—resonant with floral
and citric aromas and round, up-front sweetness—but it lacks a
certain substance. I start to pick up the rhapsodic coffee-geek
argot, bantering about brightness, notes, extraction. Latourell
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
But this strategy doesn't seem to work: The third cup, brewed
with the same parameters as the second, is thin, with none of the
previous transporting scents. I recklessly crank the temperature
to 210 degrees, and the coffee that squirts out is dramatically
different—it could pass for a different bean. The complex
jasmine notes that distinguished the cups so far are gone,
replaced by a delicate wininess that reminds me of Kalamata
olives. I wonder: Could I brew a cup with the jasmine and the
olives side by side?
The immediate consequence of the Clover and its precision isn't
necessarily better coffee, but more attention to coffee. By
creating this rigorous laboratorylike brewing environment, it
encourages cafes to explore the nuances of different beans,
where and how they're grown and dried and sorted and roasted.
And the attention to nuance gets passed along to the customers:
Grumpy's clientele can choose from a coffee menu listing
several brews, including the Cruz del Sur, "punchy and bright
with pear and green apple," and the San José El Yalú, "complex
and crisp with butterscotch, grape, chocolate and plum."
The aspirational comparison of coffee to wine is obvious, and
the passionate young Clover virtuosos at Cafe Grumpy indeed
remind me of wine enthusiasts; they're seriously invested in their
work, nothing like the sullen soy-foamers at Starbucks or even at
other independent coffee shops I frequent. On the cafe's blog,
barista Ed describes his recent visit to coffee farms in Panama.
For now, Latourell admits that wine may be "50 years ahead of
coffee" technologically. "We're just starting to scratch the
surface of what can be done with coffee, how we understand it."
But that's changing fast. The world of winemaking is wracked by
a tension between the old, individualistic ways, in which each
wine tastes distinctively of its origin, and the new methods that
produce best-selling wines in a uniform "global" style divorced
from regional characteristics. The story of coffee is the reverse—
until recently, coffees were blended and branded to suit a
homogenous popular taste, and only now is there a rising interest
in the expression of varietal and regional differences.
23/124
Is owning a Clover worth $11,000? Not for the individual—don't
be silly. But even a smattering of Clovers in the right hands
promises to broaden the way we think about coffee. The very
fact that an $11,000 coffee machine is receiving such excited
media attention seems like a clear sign that we're headed toward
a "third wave" of coffee, an age of terroir, aided by technology
that can give different beans the different careful treatments they
deserve. In the foretold era, popular dark roasts, which obscure
those subtleties, are scorned, and enlightened customers gladly
pay exorbitantly for rare brews.
Posted by Chadwick Matlin, March 6, 4:30 p.m.
Delegates at stake:
Watching the booming trade at Cafe Grumpy, the change seems
inevitable: In certain circles, at least, the generic over-thecounter stimulant Latourell dismissively calls "brown liquid that
costs a buck" will give way to increasingly common $10 and $15
cups of recherché coffee. At that rate, a small Clover designed
for the home—"of course there's talk of making one," says
Latourell—could start to sound like a smart, money-saving
purchase.
Democrats
Republicans
Total delegates:
4,049
Total delegates
needed to win:
2,025
Total delegates:
2,380
Total delegates
needed to win: 1,191
Delegates won by each
candidate:
Obama: 1,451; Clinton:
1,365; Edwards (out): 26
Delegates won by each
candidate:
McCain: 1,226; Huckabee
(out): 251; Paul: 16
Source: CNN
Source: CNN
election scorecard
Electoral Crystal Ball
Looking ahead to November, both Democrats beat John McCain.
Want more Slate election coverage? Check
out Map the Candidates, Political Futures,
Trailhead, XX Factor, and our Campaign
Junkie page!
By Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 4:30 PM ET
After surveying 30,000 people, SurveyUSA released a
comprehensive examination of what the electoral map will look
like come November, and Democrats should be all smiles.
SurveyUSA polled voters from every state to see whom they
preferred in hypothetical general election mashups between John
McCain and Hillary Clinton and John McCain and Barack
Obama. Then they transferred both sets of results to the electoral
map.
According to SurveyUSA, a Democrat would win the White
House if the election were held tomorrow. Both Clinton and
Obama beat McCain by slim margins, although Obama does a
bit better. Obama would tally 280 electoral votes while Clinton
would net 276. But just because they beat McCain in electoral
votes doesn't mean they win more states. Including Washington,
D.C., Clinton wins 21 states to McCain's 30. (They tie in two.)
Obama wins 25 states to McCain's 26.
SurveyUSA reports that Obama would grab Iowa, Michigan,
North Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Virginia, New
Hampshire*, and Washington while Clinton would not. Clinton,
meanwhile, would get the Obama-unfriendly states of Florida,
West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Arkansas.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
.
.
Correction, March 6, 2008: An earlier version of this article
erroneously included Vermont instead of New Hampshire in the
list of states that Barack Obama would likely win, according to
SurveyUSA. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
everyday economics
The Case for Foreclosures
One family's sorrow is another's joy.
By Steven E. Landsburg
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 12:48 PM ET
If you're facing foreclosure, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
wants to help. "If someone is willing to make a call to reach
out," says Paulson, "there's a chance we can save their homes."
But Paulson can't save these homes because the homes are not
24/124
endangered in the first place. They stand to change hands, not to
vanish.
intervention, won't be able to get the mortgage they want next
year.
None of these foreclosed houses is going to disappear. After a
foreclosure, one family moves out, and another moves in. We
see the sad faces of the people moving out, but we don't as often
see the happy faces of the new homeowners moving in.
Nevertheless, those happy faces are out there, and we should not
discount them.
I predict with equal confidence that a sizable chunk of readers
will attribute my observations to a failure of compassion. But
which is more compassionate: to care about the fortunes of the
people who happen to be in your field of vision or also to
include those whom you cannot see? The homeless are out there.
The starving children in Africa are out there. The would-be new
homeowners are out there. Each of them, in different ways,
stands to gain or to lose from the policy choices we make. To
exclude them from consideration—just because they happen to
be absent from the front page of this morning's newspaper—is
not a compassionate enterprise.
That's important, and it's important in a larger context. Often
when it comes to economic policy, some effects—in this case,
the genuinely moving stories of good people who can't afford to
live where they've been living—are highly visible, while
others—the genuinely moving stories of good people who can
now achieve their dreams of home ownership—are less wellpublicized. That doesn't make them any less real.
I predict with great confidence that when I say that foreclosures
create new homeowners, a sizable chunk of my readers will
scoff that "the people who can afford them would have been able
to afford nice homes anyway." I could use economics to explain
why those readers are mistaken (a glut of homes on the market
leads to falling prices, etc.), but that's unnecessarily complicated.
All it takes is the simple observation that there cannot be more
homeowners than there are homes, and if one home becomes
vacant, then there can be one new homeowner. Call it the law of
conservation of homes.
That's one reason to temper your distress over strangers suffering
foreclosure. Here's another: If you get to live in a nice home for
a few years and then lose it to foreclosure, you are not worse off
than someone who never got to live in a nice home in the first
place. If the Treasury Department is looking for ways to help
people, it would be nice to focus on the people who are most in
need of help.
Losing your house is painful. Never having anything to lose is
even more painful. How do the feds justify spending money—
and, rest assured, any program to stop foreclosures will cost
money—to help struggling homeowners instead of, say, the
struggling homeless? Or, for that matter, a child starving in
Africa? There is room for a lot of legitimate debate about how
much we should be taxed to help the less fortunate. But
whatever level of assistance we agree on, I'd like to see it
targeted to those who genuinely are less fortunate.
There's at least one more reason to regret Secretary Paulson's
eagerness to forestall foreclosures: If banks can't enforce
contracts (or even if they "voluntarily" forgo the enforcement of
contracts under pressure from the Treasury Department), they
will undoubtedly be more reluctant to make loans in the future.
Rest assured that somewhere out there—invisible to you and me
but nonetheless real—is a young couple who, thanks to this
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
explainer
What's Taking So Long in Texas?
Waiting for the caucus results in the Lone Star State.
By Michelle Tsai
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 5:28 PM ET
Hillary Clinton won the Texas Democratic primary on Tuesday,
but even two days later we still don't know who won the ensuing
caucus. Just 41 percent of the state's precincts have reported
unofficial caucus results, and news reports on Thursday said the
state was still counting its caucus votes. What's taking so long?
Snail mail. According to the rules of the Texas Democratic
Party, the chair for each election precinct doesn't have to mail
local caucus results to the state party headquarters in Austin until
the third day after the convention, Friday. Party officials tried to
speed things up this year; they set up an 800 number so that
chairs could call in results on Tuesday night, instead of dropping
them in the mailbox. But, ultimately, they couldn't force anyone
to actually pick up the phone.
Caucuses in Texas were supposed to start relatively late
anyhow—at 7:15 p.m. CST or whenever the last ballot was cast
at the poll—but there were so many voters that some
conventions didn't get going until after 9 p.m., by which time TV
networks had already forecasted winners in other states. When
meetings finally did start, some fights broke out between Obama
and Clinton supporters; in Dallas County, one chairwoman fled
to the police station.
All this attention on the state may have caught party officials—
and precinct leaders—by surprise. Presidential nominees have
historically emerged by March, so few—in or outside Texas—
have paid much attention to the state's primary, much less
clamored for same-day caucus results. This is the first year in a
25/124
long time that the Democratic caucus has mattered, and the state
didn't have much time to prepare for March 4. For instance, the
party didn't decide to install an automated phone system to
receive caucus results until last month. And with more than 1
million Democrats, including many neophytes, participating in
the caucuses, the complicated process might have caused extra
confusion.
By contrast, Iowa, a state long accustomed to being in the
limelight, spends months recruiting and training its chairmen and
chairwomen, stressing the importance of early results. Starting in
2004, local leaders phoned in caucus outcomes as soon as
delegates had been awarded, giving us the news about two hours
earlier. (They used to wait until the delegates were selected.)
This year, Nevada's party officials, with some help from Iowa,
successfully drilled into volunteers the importance of timely
caucus results. On Jan. 19, most locations reported results by
midafternoon, and 98 percent by the end of the night.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Hector Nieto of the Texas Democratic Party.
Thanks also to reader Leesa Sherborne for asking the question.
explainer
Prince Hairy?
Why didn't the British royal have to cut his hair in the army?
By Chris Wilson
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:54 PM ET
Prince Harry returned to London on Saturday, after a 10-week
deployment to Afghanistan with the Household Cavalry of the
British army. Photographs of the young royal showed him
dressed in desert fatigues with a healthy mop of red hair—an
unusual sight for Americans accustomed to military buzz cuts.
Don't British soldiers have to cut their hair, too?
Only if their commander says so. Unlike American male
recruits, for whom the buzz cut is part of the initiation into the
service, the British Ministry of Defence leaves coiffure decisions
up to individual regiment leaders. Most require new recruits to
report with neatly groomed hair of modest length; they'll even go
so far as to prohibit cuts shorter than about 1 centimeter. For
example, the Army Training Regiment in Lichfield manual for
recruits (PDF) mandates that "the closest permissible haircut is a
No 3," a clipper that leaves about 3/8 of an inch of hair. It
specifically prohibits "skinheads." Women are generally
required to keep their hair in a net or bun, as they are in the
United States.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
The differing standards are representative of the British army's
organization, which emphasizes loyalty to one's regiment in
addition to the army as a whole. Unlike the U.S. commanders,
whose "Army of one" approach emphasizes uniformity among
service members, the Minister of Defence tolerates a little bit of
panache.
Historically, facial-hair styles have conferred status to British
officers. Soldiers across the pond picked up the habit of growing
mustaches in the early 19th century while living in India. The
colonial mustache became so prevalent, in fact, that by the
middle of the century, British officers serving in the East India
Co.'s forces were required to grow them. Several British authors
have gone so far as to equate the rise and fall in the popularity of
the mustache with the strength and decline of the British Empire.
In the United States, military men have worn closely cropped
hair since at least the 1950s. The standard buzz cut of today
edged out the crew cut—as immortalized by Elvis—or the
flattop as the predominant style beginning in the 1970s.* In the
Army, regulations dictate strict standards for a soldier's general
hygiene and appearance, stating that "the requirement for hair
grooming standards is necessary to maintain uniformity within a
military population."
American soldiers have rebelled against their commanding
hairdressers on occasion. When the top general of the U.S. Army
demanded shorter hair for his troops in 1801, a colonel named
Thomas Butler took the matter all the way to court-martial for
refusing to cut his locks. And when the Navy cracked down in
the 1970s on facial hair among sailors deployed at sea for
extended periods of time, the aggrieved began mailing their
beards to an executive officer in protest.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Carol Burke of the University of CaliforniaIrvine and the British Ministry of Defence.
Correction, March 6, 2008: The original story incorrectly stated
that, by the 1990s, members of the Marine Corps were described
as "jarheads" because of their buzz haircuts. The term has been
used since at least World War II, perhaps in reference to the
Marines' high-collared blue dress uniforms, which looked a bit
like Mason jars made of blue glass. (Return to the corrected
sentence.)
explainer
Can't Touch This
Why Italians grab their crotches to ward off bad luck.
26/124
By Juliet Lapidos
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:36 PM ET
Italy's highest appeals court ruled that a 42-year-old workman
broke the law by "ostentatiously touching his genitals through
his clothing" and must pay a 200 euro fine, the Telegraph
reported Friday. The U.K. paper also noted that crotch-grabbing
is a common habit among superstitious Italian males, who
believe the gesture wards off bad luck. What does the crotch
have to do with luck?
It's the seat of fertility. The crotch grab goes back at least to the
pre-Christian Roman era and is closely associated with another
superstition called the "evil eye"—the belief that a covetous
person can harm you, your children, or your possessions by
gazing at you. Cultural anthropologists conjecture that men
would try to block such pernicious beams by shielding their
genitals, thus protecting their most valued asset: the future fruit
of their loins. Over the centuries, the practice shifted. Men
covered their generative organs not only to defend against direct
malevolence but also in the presence of anything ominous, like a
funeral procession.
These days, an Italian man might also grab his crotch in risky
situations, like a high-stakes poker game. In such cases, the grab
isn't a defense mechanism against bad luck but rather a way to
generate good luck. Once again, this practice relates to the folk
belief that the phallus is auspicious because it's the source of
masculinity and reproduction.
As an alternative to grabbing themselves, Italians sometimes
resort to phallic amulets or gestures that also have roots in the
pagan world. Ancient Romans wore a phallus-shaped charm on
their wrists or around their necks called the fascinus; modern
Italians sometimes wear a corno, which is shaped like a horn.
For centuries, Italians have been making a horizontal horn sign
called the mano cornuta to repel adversity, accomplished by
extending the index and little fingers while holding down the
other two fingers with the thumb. When the same gesture is
directed upward, it's the sign for a cuckold.
The crotch grab or corno might come in handy when Italians
come across traditional bad omens, like nuns or the number 17.
Women of the cloth are associated with two inauspicious
places—cemeteries and hospitals. There are a couple of
plausible theories for the 17 superstition: If the 1 is penciled in
slightly below the 7, then the number looks a bit like a man
hanging, where 1 is the man and 7 is the gallows. Written out in
Roman numerals as XVII, 17 becomes an anagram for the Latin
word vixi, which is the past tense of to live.* As it happens,
many tomb inscriptions start with vixi, so the word and, by
extension, 17 became connected with death.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Teodolinda Barolini of Columbia University,
Pellegrino D'Acierno of Hofstra University, and Martin Stiglio
of the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto.
Correction, March 4, 2008: This article originally stated that
the Latin word vixi is the past tense of to leave. It's actually the
past tense of to live. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
explainer
What the FARC?
A field guide to the leftist militias of Latin America.
By Michelle Tsai
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 7:00 PM ET
Raul Reyes, a senior leader in the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC, was killed by Colombian security forces
Saturday. The Explainer previously spelled out what the FARC
is, but how is this group different from all those other Latin
American leftist militias?
It's rich, and it's still active. With the exception of two militia
movements that successfully seized and retained power—Fidel
Castro's 26th of July movement in Cuba and, 20 years later, the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua—most of Latin America's armed
groups were defeated by their nations' governments years ago.
The FARC has endured because the cocaine trade in Colombia
has become a huge source of revenue for the group—by some
estimates, $250 million to $500 million a year, or at least half of
its income. The other major leftist insurgent group that remains
active in Latin America today is also Colombian: the National
Liberation Army, or the ELN. Drug money helped this smaller
group endure as well, though it may make up only one-tenth of
ELN's income; kidnapping and extortion provide the bulk.
The FARC is part of a wave of Marxist-Leninist rebel groups
that rose after Castro's Cuban revolution in 1959. But those
groups didn't share exactly the same political ideologies or
strategies for reaching their goals. ELN, for instance, was
influenced by Catholic liberation theology and has held
international talks in order to negotiate with the Colombian
government. The FARC, by contrast, has lost much of its
political agenda and is today viewed by some Latin American
leftist movements as more akin to a large mafia organization. In
Peru, the violent and secretive Shining Path (PDF), or Sendero
Luminoso, embraced Maoism and focused on peasants, not just
workers as in the classical Marxist view. The group symbolically
began its "People's War" in 1980 by hanging dogs from
lampposts to represent the dogs of capitalism. By comparison,
27/124
another Peruvian group, the Marxist Tupac Amaru, wasn't as
ruthless or as clandestine; after ambushing a Japanese
ambassador's residence in Lima and taking hundreds of hostages
in 1996, the rebels spent months negotiating with Fujimori's
government. (In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas included members
who were not Marxists; they also didn't aim for worldwide
revolution, but for the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship.)
Not all of the armed rebel groups of Latin America were based
in the jungle or drew membership only from the peasantry. The
leftist Tupamaros of Uruguay fought urban battles in
Montevideo, since that's where most people lived. The
Montoneros of Argentina also operated in cities, partly backed
by the students who had been radicalized in the 1960s.
What about the Zapatistas in Mexico? Despite the militaristic
name—Zapatista Army of National Liberation—the group
carried out a largely nonviolent, popular struggle. Mayans were
a large part of the organization, and the Zapatistas' success in
negotiating with the Mexican government raised the profile of
indigenous movements in Latin America in the 1990s, paving
the way for the election of Evo Morales, Bolivia's first
indigenous president, in 2005.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Henry Dietz of the University of Texas, Austin;
Greg Grandin of New York University; Jose Antonio Lucero of
Temple University; and Scott Mainwaring of the University of
Notre Dame.
fighting words
Of course, in 1992, Clinton borrowed from an old slogan of John
F. Kennedy's: "Change Is the Law of Life." Now, why did he
annex that questionable truism, and why in that year? First of all,
because he wanted to plagiarize the entire Kennedy effect for
himself, and second, because he was the challenger and not the
incumbent. When you are the incumbent, it is harder (but not
impossible) to demand "change." Sen. Hillary Clinton, who
wants to run as the "change" candidate—because, well, because
you can't so easily run as a status quo candidate—also wants to
run as a stability-and-experience candidate. Hence the repeated
alterations (or "changes") in her half-baked slogans. By the time
the plagiarism row had been started by her very ill-advised
advisers, she had run through: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions";
"Working for Change, Working for You"; "Ready for Change,
Ready To Lead"; and "Solutions for America." Sen. Obama,
meanwhile, had picked the slightly less banal and more cryptic
mantra "Change We Can Believe In," which I call cryptic only
because at least it makes one ask what it can conceivably be
intended to mean.
It is cliché, not plagiarism, that is the problem with our stilted,
room-temperature political discourse. It used to be that thinking
people would say, with at least a shred of pride, that their own
convictions would not shrink to fit on a label or on a bumper
sticker. But now it seems that the more vapid and vacuous the
logo, the more charm (or should that be "charisma"?) it exerts.
Take "Yes We Can," for example. It's the sort of thing parents
might chant encouragingly to a child slow on the potty-training
uptake. As for "We Are the People We Have Been Waiting For"
(in which case, one can only suppose that now that we have
arrived, we can all go home), I didn't think much of it when Rep.
Dennis Kucinich used it at an anti-war rally in 2004 ("We Are
the People We Are Waiting For" being his version) or when
Thomas Friedman came across it at an MIT student event last
December. He wrote, by the way, that just hearing it gave him—
well, you guess what it gave him. Hope? That's exactly right.
Words Matter
Cliché, not plagiarism, is the problem with today's pallid political discourse.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 2:28 PM ET
One of the great moments among many in Martin Scorsese's
Taxi Driver is when we find the young Albert Brooks manning
the phones in the campaign office of the man we know (and he
does not) to be a double-dyed phony. On behalf of the empty and
grinning Sen. Palantine, he is complaining to a manufacturer of
lapel buttons. "We asked for buttons that said, 'We Are the
People.' These say, 'We Are the People.'… Oh, you don't think
there's a difference? Well, we will not pay for the buttons. We
will throw the buttons away." Part of the joke here is that the
joke itself is also at the expense of Brooks' character and his
"candidate"—there really and truly isn't much, if any, difference.
Fan of Jerry Brown as I had been, I still winced when he ran on
his lame "We the People" slogan against Clinton as late as 1992.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Pretty soon, we should be able to get electoral politics down to a
basic newspeak that contains perhaps 10 keywords: Dream,
Fear, Hope, New, People, We, Change, America, Future,
Together. Fishing exclusively from this tiny and stagnant pool of
stock expressions, it ought to be possible to drive all thinking
people away from the arena and leave matters in the gnarled but
capable hands of the professional wordsmiths and manipulators.
In the new jargon, certain intelligible ideas would become
inexpressible. (How could one state, for example, the famous
Burkean principle that many sorts of change ought to be
regarded with skepticism?) In a rather poor trade-off for this
veto on complexity, many views that are expressible (and "We
the People Together Dream of and Hope for New Change in
America" would be really quite a long sentence in the latest junk
language) will, in turn, be entirely and indeed almost beautifully
unintelligible.
28/124
And it's not as if anybody is looking for coded language in
which to say: "Health care—who needs it?" or "Special interests
and lobbyists—give them a break," let alone "Dr. King's
dream—what a snooze." It's more that the prevailing drivel
assumes that every adult in the country is a completely illiterate
jerk who would rather feel than think and who must furthermore
be assumed, for a special season every four years, to imagine
that everyone else "in America" or in "this country" is
unemployed or starving or sleeping under a bridge. The next
assumption made by the drivel is that only a new president (or
perhaps a sitting president who is somehow eager to run against
Washington and everything else in his home town) can possibly
cure all these ills. The non sequitur is breathtaking. The more I
could be brought to believe in a stupid incantation such as
"Washington Is Broken," the less inclined I would be to pay the
moving expenses to bring a failed Mormon crowd-pleaser and
flip-flopper to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And this was the best
that a supposed "full-spectrum conservative" could come up with
by way of rhetoric. At this rate, Sen. John McCain will have to
campaign as a radical post-Castroite to deal with the perceptions
that a) he's too old and b) the Republicans are too WASPdominated.
How well I remember Sidney Blumenthal waking me up all
those years ago to read me the speech by Sen. Biden, which, by
borrowing the biography as well as the words of another
candidate's campaign, put an end to Biden's own. The same glee
didn't work this time when he (it must have been he) came up
with "Change You Can Xerox" as a riposte to Sen. Obama's
hand-me-down words from Gov. Deval Patrick. All that Obama
had lifted from Patrick was the old-fashioned idea that "words
matter," and all that one can say, reviewing the present empty
landscape of slogan and cliché, is that one only wishes that this
could once again be true.
foreigners
Setting Boundaries
Can Colombia cross into Ecuador in hot pursuit of rebels?
By Lionel Beehner
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 1:35 PM ET
In what was labeled a "hot pursuit" mission, Colombian forces
crossed into Ecuador and killed more than a dozen FARC
guerrillas March 1. Among those slain in the raid was Raúl
Reyes, the organization's No. 2, who is apparently a pal of Hugo
Chávez's. Venezuela's strongman rattled sabers by amassing
thousands of troops and tanks along the border and withdrawing
Venezuela's ambassador from Bogotá, warning, "This could be
the start of a war in South America."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Colombia has waged a decadeslong war against FARC, a band
of Marxists known for its kidnappings and drug trafficking. But
did Colombia's government overreach by striking rebel camps
inside Ecuador? The answer depends on whether you believe
that nations should be allowed to violate their neighbors'
sovereignty in "hot pursuit" of armed combatants. Increasingly,
states are saying, Why not? After all, Colombia claims that the
Ecuadorian authorities collaborated with FARC and provided
them with a safe haven. If you don't keep your shop clean, the
thinking goes, we'll pry open your windows at night and do it for
you. Turkey employed similar logic to justify its cross-border
offensive into northern Iraq last month to root out the Kurdistan
Workers Party, a pro-Kurdish rebel group. Ditto Israel's rationale
for its July 2006 invasion of Lebanon after Hezbollah fighters
killed and kidnapped a handful of Israeli soldiers. All three states
say they acted in self-defense.
Even the United States winks at hot pursuit's legitimacy. In fact,
the U.S. military says it was authorized to enter Iran and Syria to
pursue insurgents, according to a classified 2005 memo released
by Wikileaks last month. The same rules of engagement apply to
its hunt for terrorists in Pakistan. As then-Army Lt. Gen.
Douglas Lute said in a Senate armed services committee hearing
last March, U.S. forces do not need the approval of Islamabad
"to pursue [terrorists], either with [artillery] fire or on the
ground, across the border." As recently as March 3, the U.S.
Navy lobbed a few Tomahawk missiles into southern Somalia to
take out a band of Islamist extremists.
Indeed, while "hot pursuit" may conjure an image of a car chase
across county lines, its invocation among nations is growing.
This is a reflection not only of the borderless nature of today's
enemies, from terrorists to drug traffickers, but also of states'
growing inability—or unwillingness—to control these
combatants. The phrase refers to the right of nations to
temporarily violate another state's sovereignty and nab or kill
wanted fugitives, whether they are terrorists, rebels, or war
criminals. Others interpret the phrase more loosely to provide
legal sanction for larger incursions or even surgical airstrikes.
Legal experts remain divided over the practice. Some say the
term refers to the arcane right of navies to pursue foreign ships
that have fled to the high seas and that it has no legitimacy on
land. "The bottom line is there is no such thing as 'hot pursuit,' "
argues David Crane of Syracuse University's College of Law.
"Maybe if I'm a cop in Macon County, Ga., and the bad guy
crosses over into the next county, then it's OK." But in the
international arena, he says, Colombian forces cannot simply
barge into Ecuador and attack rebels without Ecuador's
permission.
Others contend that the role between nonstate actors and their
hosts has evolved. Prior to 9/11, only a government that
exhibited "effective control" of a group within its borders was
found liable for the group's crimes. That is why the International
29/124
Court of Justice found that Nicaragua was not responsible for
funneling arms to El Salvador-based guerrillas in the 1980s. Nor
did Serbia demonstrate "effective control" over Bosnian Serbs
accused of massacring thousands of Muslims in the 1990s.
With the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban, however, the
"effective control" principle was tossed out the window. U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1373, passed shortly after 9/11,
required that states "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan,
support, or commit terrorist acts." That is, state sovereignty
confers rights but also responsibilities to control one's territory.
More important, says Michael Scharf of the Case Western
Reserve University School of Law, "it gives the victimized
country the option for self-help," provided the response is
immediate, proportional, and a means of last resort.
The trouble is that states tend to overreach. Both Turkey and
Israel caught guff for using disproportionate force during their
respective cross-border operations against the PKK and
Hezbollah. Yet the doctrine of proportionality remains
subjective. To paraphrase what a law professor told me after the
Israeli-Hezbollah conflict: If someone punches you in the nose,
you don't burn their house down. That is, Colombia cannot
respond to FARC guerrilla activity by carpet-bombing Quito. A
targeted airstrike against a terrorist safe house near the border,
on the other hand, is more open to debate.
There is some confusion over whether a chase has to be under
way for hot pursuit to apply. Ecuador's president said the rebels
were killed "in their pajamas," not while fleeing Colombian
forces. Regardless, Colombia doesn't believe it will be slapped
with sanctions or reprimanded by the United Nations. Nor is
Venezuela expected to follow through on its threat to "send
some Sukhois" into Colombia. "This is just a way for Chávez to
ramp up the costs and consequences for Colombia," says Adam
Isacson, director of programs at the Center for International
Policy.
Still, this standoff highlights the real danger that hot-pursuit
raids can pose. In the post-9/11 era, nations have a right to selfdefense against nonstate actors. But were this to emerge as the
new global norm, twitchy nations would just invade their
neighbors with impunity, running the risk of localized conflicts
escalating into regional conflagrations. Worse, terrorist groups
such as FARC or the PKK would not be eradicated—they would
simply find sanctuary elsewhere.
foreigners
Putin's Potemkin Democracy
Why does Russia bother to hold elections?
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
By Anne Applebaum
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:47 AM ET
Last Wednesday, Dmitry Medvedev took a break from his job as
deputy prime minister of Russia and held a public meeting.
Dressed in shirtsleeves, he talked about pension reform,
promised to improve education, and shook a few hands. As
public meetings go, it was an ordinary one—except for the fact
that it was the first and last public meeting of Medvedev's
presidential campaign. If you wanted to see the candidate before
Sunday's vote, that was your one and only chance. Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama, spending millions of dollars and
wearing themselves thin, must be green with envy.
But Medvedev was certainly right to save his strength. Exit polls
and early returns show him winning with 70 percent of the vote,
which is a relief to some; anything higher, one of his campaign
staff conceded, might have been "embarrassing." As predicted,
this was a farcical election, a battle between Medvedev, the
Kremlin's candidate, and three officially sanctioned opponents: a
clapped-out "Communist," a complete nonentity, and the
ludicrous anti-Semite and vulgarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who
is genially tolerated by the Russian media. Mikhail Kasyanov,
the candidate from what passes for the only genuine opposition
party, was not allowed to stand. The Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, along with various other European
election observers not usually known for their bravery, refused
to monitor the campaign at all; even the head of the electoral
commission conceded that media coverage has been, well,
biased in Medvedev's favor.
Only one question remains unanswered: Why did anyone bother
holding an election at all? Given that the inner circle of ex-KGB
officers that controls the Kremlin also controls the country's
media, its legal system, its parliament, and its major companies,
why do they need elections? Why didn't Vladimir Putin just
appoint Medvedev, or keep the presidency himself? The answer,
I think, can lie only in the ruling clique's fundamental insecurity,
odd as that sounds. Though the denizens of the Kremlin do not,
cannot, seriously fear Western military attack, they do still seem
to fear Western-inspired popular discontent: public questioning
of their personal wealth, public opposition to their power,
political demonstrations of the sort that created the Orange
Revolution in Ukraine. To stave off these things, they maintain
the democratic rituals that give them a semblance of legitimacy.
The need for legitimacy also helps explain the string of vitriolic,
aggressive attacks on Western democracies that presaged
yesterday's election. In the past couple of years, Putin has also
openly compared America to Nazi Germany, set up an
institution designed to monitor America's supposedly dubious
democracy, and frequently accused both Americans and Western
Europeans, especially the British, of hypocrisy and human-rights
violations. This rhetoric serves several purposes, but above all it
30/124
is designed to inoculate the Russian public against the example
of more open societies. The message is simple: Russia is not
merely a democracy, it is a better democracy than Western
democracies. Indeed, much of Putin's rhetoric in recent years
makes sense in this light. Take his hostility toward neighbors
Georgia and Ukraine, countries where post-Soviet regimes
dramatically lost their legitimacy in recent years and are
evolving in a different direction. Though Putin cannot possibly
be militarily intimidated by any potential NATO relationship
with Georgia or Ukraine, he may well be afraid of the example
set by those countries' Western orientation, since their
geopolitical choices challenge his own.
nominee, John McCain. Shouldn't Hillary graciously concede
and end this endless primary season?
Even some of the shockingly Soviet interpretations of history
promulgated in Russia in recent years—famously, Putin
described the breakup of the Soviet Union as "the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century"—make sense in this
context. Surely a part of their purpose was to create an alternate
version of post-Soviet history, one that supports the Kremlin's
current rule. According to the Putinist explanation of history, the
fall of the Soviet Union was not a moment of liberation but the
beginning of collapse. The hardships and deprivations of the
1990s were not the result of decades of Communist neglect and
widespread thievery but of capitalism and democracy.
The calls to wrap up the Democratic primary race show a similar
amnesia. To suggest that March 5 marks a late date in the
calendar ignores the duration of primary seasons past. Indeed,
were Hillary Clinton to have pulled out of the race this week,
Obama would have actually clinched a contested race for the
party's nomination earlier than almost any other Democrat since
the current primary system took shape—the sole exception being
John Kerry four years ago. Fighting all the way through the
primaries, in other words, is perfectly normal.
In other words, communism was stable and safe, postcommunism has been a disaster, and Putin's regime has set the
country on the right track again. The more Russians believe this,
the less likely they are to want a truly open, genuinely
entrepreneurial, authentically democratic society—at least until
the oil runs out. Asked about the unnatural dullness of this
election campaign, which even the Russian news agency ITARTass described as "a bore," Putin's reply was straightforward:
"We have had a 16-percent rise in wages this year. ... This
answers your question." But everyone needs a backup plan. In
case oil prices drop again, the democratic rituals must go on.
history lesson
The Long Goodbye
Like the calls for Al Gore to concede the presidency to George
Bush in November 2000, this anxiety about the imagined
consequences of a protracted fight misreads both history and the
calendar. In 2000, pundits seemed not to know that contested
elections in previous years—notably the 1960 race between John
F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—remained officially unresolved
until barely a month before Inauguration Day, and so they talked
as if each hour of uncertainty brought the republic nearer to
doom.
The year 1972 is when the current primary system came into
being, and to review the races ever since is to behold a panorama
of Democratic infighting that makes the Clinton-Obama
fisticuffs look tame. Back in 1972, following the watery collapse
of Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie in the New Hampshire primary,
Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota emerged as the
Democrats' front-runner. But as he marched through the
primaries, large swaths of the party worried that he was too far
to the left and rallied behind other candidates—they just couldn't
agree on a single one to rally behind. Well into June, some
Democratic leaders were openly mounting a "stop McGovern"
movement. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the 1968
nominee, actively competed in the June primaries, while Muskie,
having suspended his campaign weeks earlier, made a sudden
cross-country tour to woo delegates and cast himself as the
alternative to McGovern. Only after the South Dakotan won the
June 21 New York primary did he effectively seal the
nomination—and even then he opened the convention without
the backing of his main rivals.
It's too early to talk about Hillary's withdrawal.
By David Greenberg
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 11:33 AM ET
Despite Hillary Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas yesterday,
she still trails Barack Obama in delegates. The Obama camp,
claiming she won't be able to close the gap, is spinning the case
for her to withdraw. Though self-serving, their argument is
framed as a concern for the Democratic Party. At this late date,
the reasoning goes, the Democrats need to stop squabbling and
unite behind a nominee who can take on the Republican
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
The 1976 primary was equally protracted. Jimmy Carter, then a
former governor of Georgia, surprised everyone by staking out a
lead with a win in Iowa, but his grasp on first place remained
tenuous as Arizona Rep. Morris Udall and Washington Sen.
Henry Jackson—men with more experience and stronger
national followings—pressed on. Jackson finally bowed out on
May 1, but at that point Idaho's Frank Church and California's
Jerry Brown jumped in the race. Carter continued to stumble. On
June 9, he lost not only to Brown in California but also to an
uncommitted slate of delegates in New Jersey. Only a decisive
victory the same day in Ohio helped Carter prevail, as he lined
up key endorsements the next day from antagonists such as
31/124
Jackson, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, and Chicago Mayor
Richard Daley. Udall conceded June 15.
Four years later, Carter, as the sitting president, should have had
an easier time. But Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
launched a primary challenge that galvanized the Democratic
Party's liberals. By June, Carter had won enough contests to
amass a lead in delegates that seemed to guarantee him
renomination. Yet Kennedy refused to withdraw. He publicly
carried on his campaign through high-profile speeches while
allies worked behind the scenes to poach Carter's delegates. "If
Mr. Kennedy is feeling no great financial pressure to get out of
the race," the New York Times reported on June 11, "he also
appears to be feeling no great pressure to withdraw to avoid
splitting the Democratic party." Days before the convention,
Kennedy announced he would break precedent to become the
first Democrat since William Jennings Bryan to address the
convention before the first roll call—the gesture of an active
candidate, not a peacemaker. He ultimately surrendered at the
convention itself.
A swift resolution eluded the Democrats once more in 1984.
Starting with an upset in the New Hampshire primary, Colorado
Sen. Gary Hart mounted a surprisingly effective challenge to
former Vice President Walter Mondale, who had long been the
presumptive nominee. Mondale retook the lead in a March 12
debate when he punctured the image of Hart as a bearer of new
ideas with the line from a Wendy's commercial, "Where's the
beef?" Hart, however, refused to quit, scoring primary wins in
Wisconsin, Ohio, California, and elsewhere. Though trailing in
delegates, Hart sought ways to stay alive after the primaries,
threatening a challenge to some of Mondale's delegates. At
length, on June 25, he effectively threw in the towel, appearing
with Mondale to announce the end of his delegate challenge,
though he still had his name placed in nomination at the July
convention.
In the last two decades, Democrats have arrived at a nominee
faster—yet the contests still dragged on longer than popular
memory suggests. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis is
remembered as having sewn up his nomination rapidly. But he
didn't earn the label of presumptive nominee until April 21,
when he beat Tennessee's Al Gore in the New York primary.
And Jesse Jackson—whom the press never treated as a viable
candidate, despite numerous primary victories—stayed in the
race into June, when Dukakis nailed down the delegates he
needed.
June was also the magic month for Bill Clinton in 1992, as
Hillary has been reminding us recently. Clinton had been
confident of getting the party's nod since March, when his chief
adversary, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, suspended
his bid. But Jerry Brown, again playing spoiler, dogged Clinton
throughout the remaining primaries, forcing him to limp rather
than sprint to victory, as the New York Times put it. Both Al
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 fairly coasted to the
nomination after their victories in Iowa, but even they were still
enmeshed in battle in March: Gore's challenger, Bill Bradley,
kept fighting until March 9, and Kerry's strongest competitor,
John Edwards, didn't drop out until March 3.
Although the intraparty warfare sometimes got ugly in these
races, and pundits warned of its harmful consequences, there's
little evidence to suggest that it ever made a substantial
difference in the fall election. In 1976 and 1992, the Democrats
won. In 1972, 1980, and 1984, they surely would have lost
anyway. In 1988, Dukakis met defeat because of his weak
general-election campaign, not his springtime battles with Gore
and Jackson. It's true that Gore had attacked him over a
Massachusetts prison furlough program and that George H.W.
Bush infamously followed suit, making Willie Horton part of the
annals of negative campaigning. But providing ammunition to
the other party is a hazard of even short primary campaigns, and
the Republicans will surely need no help in depicting Obama as
unready to fight a war on terrorism or Clinton as Lady Macbeth.
We should also bear in mind that Obama holds a much slimmer
lead over Clinton than McGovern, Carter, and Mondale held
over their closest challengers—or, for that matter, than any of
the nomination-bound front-runners in the elections since. As of
this writing, Clinton is actually tied with Obama among
Democratic voters nationally in the Gallup daily tracking poll.
As long as this primary season has lasted, it's still—amazing to
say—relatively early in the calendar. In all likelihood, the
Democrats will arrive at a nominee by June. But even if it takes
a convention to settle the race, there will still be more than 10
weeks until Election Day—a span, we would do well to recall,
that is a mite longer than the veritable lifetime that has already
seemed to have elapsed since this year's Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3.
hot document
Canada's Obama NAFTA Memo
Did Obama's senior economic adviser dismiss his candidate's protectionism
with a wink?
By Bonnie Goldstein
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:36 PM ET
From: Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:36 PM ET
On Feb. 9 Austan Goolsbee, the senior economic adviser to
Barack Obama's presidential campaign, had a meeting with
Georges Rioux, consul general for the Canadian government.
32/124
The two men met in Chicago, where Rioux maintains a consular
office for the states of Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin and
where Goolsbee teaches economics at the University of Chicago.
(Slate readers may also remember Goolsbee as a onetime
"Dismal Science" columnist.) Afterward, Joseph DeMora, a
consulate staff member, wrote an enthusiastic summary (see
below and the following two pages) for Canadian Ambassador
Michael Wilson. In the memo, DeMora praised Goolsbee's
"intellectual prowess … approachability, curiosity and youthful
enthusiasm" and alerted Wilson that the Obama brain-truster
"appeared genuinely … impressed by the magnitude" of the
economic relationship between the United States and Canada
(see below).
For the Canadians, a key point of concern was Obama's sharp
criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement. DeMora
wrote Wilson that in the Chicago meeting, Goolsbee "candidly
acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged,
particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign" but
reassured Rioux that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be
viewed as more about political positioning than a clear
articulation of policy plans." Three weeks later, Canada's CTV
News reported that a "senior member" of Obama's campaign had
phoned Wilson personally to advise him to "not be worried
about what Obama says about NAFTA." The Obama campaign
denied that story, which (if you believe DeMora's account) was
only slightly off the mark, and declined to elaborate. On March 3
the Associated Press released the DeMora memo, which by then
had circulated widely within the Canadian government. Asked
once again to comment, Obama said his campaign provided
Canada no such reassurance while Goolsbee maintained that
DeMora "misinterpreted" his comments. For its part, the
Chicago consulate smoothed things over with a statement
saying, "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that
Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different
position in public from views expressed in private." It looks like
President Obama may owe one to our friendly neighbors to the
north.
Send ideas for Hot Document to documents@slate.com. Please
indicate whether you wish to remain anonymous.
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:36 PM ET
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:36 PM ET
hot document
The Texas Dildo Massacre (NSFW)
The state's sex-toy ban is struck down by a federal court.
By Bonnie Goldstein
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:42 PM ET
From: Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:42 PM ET
On Feb. 13, sex-toy retailers in Texas rejoiced when a federal
appeals court ruled—just in time for Valentine's Day—that a
Texas prohibition against the sale of dildos and pocket pussies
violated the 14th Amendment.
According to the Texas (ahem) penal code, it is forbidden to sell
or to advertise an artificial penis or vagina "primarily for the
stimulation of human genital organs." The statute makes an
exception for instances in which the purchase meets a "medical,
psychiatric, judicial, legislative, or law enforcement" need. Even
so, in Reliable Consultants v. Ronnie Earle, the normally
conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ban on
the grounds that it violated the right of ordinary citizens "to
engage in private intimate conduct in the home without
government intrusion."
One of only four states banning sexual doodads (the other three
are Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama), Texas is not about to
take this insult lying down. Last week, state Attorney General
Greg Abbott petitioned the appellate court to reconsider the
matter en banc (see exerpts below and on the following three
pages). Abbott wrote that, if permitted to stand, the court's
decision may "invite … challenges to previously-uncontroversial
criminal prohibitions" on sexual practices such as "consensual
adult incest or bigamy" (Page 4).
Thanks to law professor Marc Randazza for posting the link.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
33/124
Send ideas for Hot Document to documents@slate.com. Please
indicate whether you wish to remain anonymous.
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:42 PM ET
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:42 PM ET
India has just announced a plan to pay families for raising girls.
Give birth to a daughter, and you'll get a cash installment.
Vaccinate her, and you'll get another. Enroll her in school, keep
her there, nourish her adequately, and you'll keep collecting.
"We will pay the money in stages and monitor how they are
brought up," the country's minister for women and children,
Renuka Chowdhury, said this week. Total payout: up to $5,000
per daughter. Chowdhury is explicit about the program's first
objective: stopping sex-selective abortions.
Meanwhile, China is rethinking its one-child policy. Last year,
dissenters within the Communist Party moved to abandon the
policy. A week ago, Zhao Baige, vice minister of the country's
family-planning commission, told reporters that the policy had
"become a big issue among decision makers" and that the
government was studying whether to phase it out. The
commission denies that the policy will change, but the fight is
now out in the open.
What's going on? Coercive state power, even under communism,
is failing. In procreation, as in profit-making, governments are
increasingly working with individual choice instead of against it.
They're learning to respect both the value of women and the
ecology of the family. And it isn't ideology that's selling this
change of mindset to governments or to the citizens they're
trying to influence. It's sheer pragmatism.
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:42 PM ET
human nature
Girl Power
Coercion, money, and the rise of reproductive freedom.
By William Saletan
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 11:47 AM ET
Two and a half billion people live in China or India. That's eight
times the population of the United States and more than onethird of the world's total. But it's less than it would have been by
hundreds of millions of people, thanks in part to two brutal
practices: a Chinese limit of one child per family and widespread
abortions of unborn Indian girls.
Those practices may be on the way out.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Twenty years ago, China commonly enforced its one-child
policy through forced sterilizations and abortions. This produced
outrage at home and abroad. Citizens with money or connections
evaded the limit. When the government shifted its enforcement
methods from compulsion to fines, the evasion became explicit.
The rich can pay to have extra kids; the urban poor can't.
The policy's purpose was to limit population to a level that the
country's resources could support. Defenders of the policy still
make that argument. But critics, even within the government,
say the limit has backfired. There aren't enough young workers
to support the aging older generation. Labor shortages are
slowing economic growth. Kids used to grow up and take care of
their parents; now they can't because this has become a one-ontwo assignment, not counting their day jobs. Critics also argue
that a generation of kids who grew up without siblings has
become psychologically warped and socially destructive. What
unites these indictments is a sense that messing with the ecology
of the family has done more harm than good.
The shift in enforcing the policy, from force to fines, was a
concession to this ecology and to personal choice. It mirrored the
government's concessions to capitalism. If you really want
something, including a second child, you can pay for it, provided
you have the money. And if you and your spouse have no
siblings, the policy now allows you a second kid without a fine.
Your kids will have a fighting chance at taking care of you.
34/124
Defenders of the policy have always feared that if the cap were
lifted, population would explode. What's driving the reform
movement is growing confidence that this calculation is
mistaken. Zhao says surveys show that today's young Chinese
don't want the big families of yesteryear. Sixty percent want no
more than two kids; few want more than three. Over the last 30
years, the number of kids each family would produce if given
total freedom has fallen from 5.8 to 1.8. That's below the
replacement rate. What's needed now, Zhao suggests, is policies
that facilitate this preference, such as contraceptive education.
human nature
The one-child policy has also warped China's male-to-female
ratio. If you live in a traditional, sexist society, you probably
want a boy. If you're allowed only one child and you find out
you're carrying a girl, things get ugly. At birth, the normal boygirl ratio, if you let nature take its course, is about 105 to 100. In
China, it's 118 to 100. Leaving aside the fact that it's just plain
wrong to abort girls for being girls, a ratio of 118 to 100 leaves
18 boys without a girl. Even a Communist knows that's a social
disaster. To avert it, Zhao says, the government is trying to
persuade the public that girls are valuable. It's also subsidizing
rural areas that have regarded sons as financial assets and girls as
liabilities.
People who were spanked as kids are more likely to have
masochistic, unprotected, or coercive sex, according to
studies. Findings: 1) The more you were spanked or hit before
age 12, the more likely you are to have "verbally coerced sex."
2) The more you were spanked or hit, the more likely you are to
have "hit or held down a partner" to get sex. 3) Having been
spanked makes you twice as likely to say you've insisted on sex
without a condom. 4) Spanking also increases a teen's likelihood
of having sex with multiple partners. 5) In a sample of 200
college students, 40 percent of the never-spanked group said
they'd "enjoyed masochistic sex," but 75 percent of the spankeda-lot group said so. Theories: 1) Corporal punishment creates a
psychological "fusion of love and violence." 2) It reduces
"concern for the well-being of other people." 3) It teaches poor
impulse control. 4) It makes your kids ignore your relationship
advice. Authorized take-away: Spanking is bad. Unauthorized
take-away: Half of college kids admit they've enjoyed
masochistic sex? (Related: Guess how many admit they've tried,
ahem.)
On that question, India is moving in the same direction. Like
China, India has a sex-selection problem. A recent study
calculated that over the last two decades, 10 million Indian girls
have been aborted. The most recent estimated rate is 7,000 per
day. Nationwide, the number of girls born for every 1,000 boys
is 933. In some regions, it's below 900. Much of the reason is
economic. In parts of India, as in China, boys are regarded as
assets, while girls require dowries so that somebody else's son
will support them.
In India, as in China, central mandates have failed. The country's
ban on sex-selective abortion has proved unenforceable.
Chowdhury is trying a different tack. Instead of telling parents
what to do, she's offering what she calls an "incentive." You can
lecture parents all day about the value of raising girls, but the
best way to make them appreciate that value is to make it
concrete and immediate. Chowdhury thinks her subsidies will
persuade parents "to look upon the girl as an asset rather than a
liability since her very existence would lead to cash inflow to the
family." Over time, she hopes, the education and employment of
women will "help in changing their mindsets towards the girl."
Will it work? I don't know. Nor am I certain that reproductive
freedom, coupled with family planning, will rectify China's
demographic imbalances without leading to a population
explosion. But I bet they'll work better than preaching and
prohibition have.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Hanky Spanky
Spanking, masochism, and coercive sex.
By William Saletan
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 9:06 AM ET
New column 2/29 on Roger Clemens' doping defense. (For
discussions of the latest topics, check out the Human Nature
Fray.)
The high-tech immigration fence flunked its pilot test.
Problems: 1) The software was designed for police dispatching,
whereas military "battle management" software is needed. 2) It
doesn't process data fast enough to help operators direct remote
cameras to moving targets. 3) The cameras are only half as sharp
as advertised. 4) The cameras don't synch with the radar. 5) The
radar can't distinguish targets from trees. 6) Rain sets off the
radar. 7) The gear is housed in towers that are easy targets for
drug gangs. Government spins: 1) "The concept works." 2) The
mistakes aren't fatal. 3) We're learning from them. New plan: 1)
More "mobile ground surveillance units." 2) More aerial drones.
(Related: Are drones the answer to terrorism?)
Animals are the next target of the crackdown on sports
doping. 1) A bull-riding association has begun random testing of
bulls. 2) On Wednesday, horse racing's top executive joined a
congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in
sports. Horse-racing industry spins: 1) We test at least one horse
in every race for various drugs. 2) That's tougher than what other
leagues do to human players. 3) Few horses flunk.
Congressman's rebuttal: Horse racing is dragging its hooves on
banning steroids, which human leagues have already done. Bull
owner's allegation about steroids: "You can tell by looking at
some of those bulls and their sizes. It's just like human beings."
Rebuttals: 1) Bull owners have stopped using steroids because
35/124
the drugs sterilize the bulls, which is financially disastrous. 2)
Bulls don't benefit from steroids, because you can't make them
exercise to add muscle while they're on the drugs, as you can
with humans. (Related: Doping and Roger Clemens' wife.)
The girl born with eight limbs has begun to walk with
assistance. She's using a baby walker at age 2; her extra limbs
were surgically removed three months ago. Next medical
challenges: 1) "Major urinary problems." 2) Bent legs. Doctors
plan more surgeries in the next two months to address both
problems. (Related: Human Nature's previous update on the
eight-limbed girl.)
Oklahomans are debating a "video vigilante" war on
prostitution. The vigilante tapes men using prostitutes, edits the
video for taste but not to protect identity, and posts it on his Web
site. Impact: Hundreds of men have been taped; one clip has
been viewed 340,000 times. Rationales: 1) It deters would-be
johns. 2) Prostitution ruined his neighborhood. 3) Cops and
courts weren't convicting johns. 4) If you don't want your sex to
be taped, don't do it in public. Objections: 1) It's invasive. 2) It's
prurient. 3) It implies guilt even if nobody has been convicted. 4)
He enjoys it too much. 5) He has turned it into a business, with
profits from his site, YouTube ads, and selling video to talk
shows. Human Nature's view: Taping public sex is no
scummier than doing it, and making the sex private solves the
vigilante problem. (Disagree?)
Legislators in Denmark approved a plan to legalize and
subsidize heroin for some users. The plan is modeled on a
similar system in Switzerland. Conditions: 1) It's only for "500
of the worst affected and most marginalized addicts." 2) The
drug can be acquired only with a prescription. 3) It has to be
combined with methadone to relieve the addiction. 4) The
government will foot the bill: $14 million over two years. Goals:
1) Reduce crimes driven by heroin addiction. 2) Rehabilitate the
addicts. (Related: 1) How harmful is marijuana? 2) Is tobacco
worse? 3) Reengineering pot.)
A study says brain differences may cause differences in
aggression among teenage boys. Sample: 137 12-year-old
boys, observed while interacting with parents. Findings: 1) 1) "A
significant positive association between volume of the amygdala
[a brain area related to fear and arousal] and the duration of
adolescent aggressive behavior during these interactions." 2)
"Male-specific associations between the volume of prefrontal
structures and affective behavior." Researchers' conclusions: 1)
"Brain structure is associated with affective behavior and its
regulation" in such interactions. 2) "There may be gender
differences in the neural mechanisms underlying affective and
behavioral regulation" during these years. Crude translation: 1)
My amygdala made me do it. 2) "These boys may … be unable
to control their emotions because … parts of the brain that
normally control strong emotions don't mature till the early 20s."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Critique: Correlation doesn't prove causal direction, or even
causation. (Related: Rethinking the age of consent.)
Latest Human Nature columns: 1) Roger Clemens' doping
defense. 2) Abortion and sex selection. 3) Growth hormone and
Clemens' wife. 4) Fat genes and responsibility. 5) The messy
biology of human embryos. 6) Obama and the white vote. 7)
Bush, stem cells, and stubbornness. 8) Why the polls botched
New Hampshire.
international papers
Fight Club
The international press smells blood in the Democratic primaries.
By Susan Daniels
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 4:02 PM ET
It seems Tuesday's dramatic primaries were being watched as
closely abroad as they were at home. Sen. Hillary Clinton's wins
in Ohio and Texas prompted the international press to trowel on
the sports metaphors—mixed and otherwise.
In a report for the London Times breathlessly headlined, "Obama
left winded as crowds roar Clinton back off the ropes and into
the race," Tony Baldwin wrote:
Her campaign has reinvented itself as that of
an underdog: hard-working, ready for a scrap,
resentful and with a mean streak running
through it. … Mr Obama must still be the
favourite to win in the end, but he may have to
limp over the finishing line looking over his
shoulder at a Clinton campaign that smells
blood. He has weaknesses. And she will relish
finding them.
"The word 'decisive' should now be banned from coverage of the
Democratic primary race over the coming weeks," declared Alex
Spillius in the Daily Telegraph. "At every turn it has been
expected that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will
emerge as the overwhelming favourite to secure the
nomination." And at every turn, those expectations have been
upset. "Mrs Clinton proved that she is at her best when she is
down. She needed to win Ohio and Texas and did so by
throwing every conceivable punch at her opponent, including a
couple below the belt."
Edward Luce of the Financial Times said: "Hillary Clinton
promised last week to throw the 'kitchen sink' at Barack Obama
and it worked. … The lesson from Tuesday—as it was from
'Super Tuesday' a month ago—is that Democratic voters remain
36/124
almost evenly and passionately divided between Mrs Clinton
and Mr Obama." And from Hong Kong, the Asia Times'
Muhammad Cohen complained, "America had its chance to
anoint Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee on
Tuesday, and America blinked. Possibly because of all the mud
Hillary Clinton's campaign flung in its eyes."
'Barack's done extremely well and we're very proud of him,'
Auma Obama said when asked for a reaction to the losses on
Tuesday. 'This is like a football match. The game continues.' "
In Britain's Guardian, Michael Tomasky warned, "Clinton
partisans should keep some perspective here. The delegate count
is still strongly against her. The math is the math is the math. It
is almost/virtually/essentially/fundamentally impossible for her
to win the battle of pledged delegates. … Part of the reason for a
primary season is to see if the nominee can take punches and get
back up. So now Obama will presumably endure that baptism."
jurisprudence
"The Comeback Kid keeps coming back and back, at least in her
mind and those of her supporters," wrote John Ibbitson in
Canada's Globe and Mail, but Hillary's performance in
Tuesday's primaries just doesn't signify: "Bottom line: There
isn't a convincing scenario that ends with Ms. Clinton winning,
no matter what Ohio might say." And in light of John McCain's
now-unchallenged path to the Republican nomination, an
internal fight is something the Democrats can't afford: "So
whether or not last night was a moral, tactical or even real
victory for Hillary Clinton, it came at a cost, for her own
prospects and those of her party."
"One has to wonder at this stage," noted Slate columnist
Christopher Hitchens in the British tabloid the Daily Mirror,
"whether Senator Obama and his children's crusade completely
appreciated that this is the way it would play out, but then their
own actual delegate count is not immediately affected by last
night's events. What may be affected is their blissful sense that it
would all be one long peace-and-love cakewalk to the
nomination."
An apparently prescient Richard Adams, writing in the
Guardian, proposed a solution to the bloodbath: pair the battling
Democrats as running mates. He acknowledged that the plan is
not without risks. "One danger is that a Clinton-Obama ticket
could be the worst of both worlds, gluing together the motivating
force of Clintonophobia among Republicans and the barelydisguised racist repetition of Barack Hussein Obama. Perhaps.
But in fact the worst of all possible worlds is the current reality:
the Democratic party's two leading assets battling each other to
the death."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the Independent of
South Africa reported on reaction to Obama's losses: " 'We feel
bad, but we all hope he will succeed in the end,' carpenter
George Oduor, 25, said in Kogelo, the small village northwest of
Kisumu town that was home to Obama's late father. 'We don't
want Hillary,' he said as children headed to class at the nearby
Senator Obama Secondary School." And Obama's half-sister
ultimately sounds like a member of the international press: "
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Big Business's Big Term
Victories for the Chamber of Commerce at the Supreme Court.
By Doug Kendall
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:05 PM ET
With the Supreme Court term moving past the halfway mark,
corporate America's long-term investments in the federal
judiciary are yielding impressive returns. The U.S. Chamber of
Commerce's Robin Conrad gushed about a "hat trick" of
Supreme Court victories one day in February, telling the Legal
Times, "I don't think I've ever experienced a day at the Supreme
Court like that."
Thirty-seven years ago, future Justice Lewis Powell, then a
lawyer in private practice, penned a now-famous memorandum
alerting the Chamber of Commerce to a "neglected opportunity
in the courts." Powell explained that "the judiciary may be the
most important instrument for social, economic and political
change," and he urged the chamber and its corporate benefactors
to invest heavily in this "vast area of opportunity." In the wake
of Powell's memo, the business community seeded a vast body
of scholarship and created a nationwide network of pro-business
legal organizations. This investment has quietly borne fruit for
decades—and, this term in particular, landed corporate America
the wins that thrilled Conrad, and more besides.
On that hat-trick day in February, the court issued three probusiness decisions, striking down state rules designed to prevent
children from receiving cigarettes via the Internet (Rowe v. New
Hampshire Motor Transport Association), blocking state courts
from holding manufacturers liable for the harms caused by
defective medical devices (Riegel v. Medtronic), and using a
federal arbitration statute to protect corporations against state
jury trials in contract disputes (Preston v. Ferrer). These were
all "pre-emption" decisions, which means that the court found a
conflict between a federal law and a state statute or decisions
reached by state courts. In such a conflict, federal law trumps,
and this led the court in these three cases to free corporations
from state limits on their conduct.
Earlier this term, the court gave the chamber another win when it
ruled broadly against "scheme liability" lawsuits, which hold
accountable everyone involved in an effort to defraud securities
investors. As a direct result of that case, Stoneridge v. ScientificAtlanta, the financial institutions that enabled Enron to
37/124
perpetrate the largest corporate fraud in U.S. history won the
dismissal of a $40 billion lawsuit brought by the investors in
Enron whose retirement security was decimated by this fraud.
It's not just particular cases that the chamber is winning, but also
foundational issues that set the course of the law. Stoneridge is
what lawyers call a "cause of action" case; it was about whether
the plaintiffs could get into the courthouse to ensure the
enforcement of the obligations that the federal Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 imposes on corporations. Decades ago,
the court ruled that the Exchange Act necessarily implied that
victims of corporate misconduct could sue corporations for
flouting the clear legal obligations that this law imposes. But
starting in 1975, the court began a steady retreat from the idea
that judges could "imply" a cause of action, forcing Congress to
state clearly that it wants people to be able to sue. In Stoneridge,
the court took this a big step further, saying in effect that people
cannot sue companies to enforce an obligation under the
Exchange Act that the court has not approved in a prior case.
This ruling essentially freezes the enforceability of the Exchange
Act.
Another cause-of-action case in which a decision is still pending
is the biggest civil-rights case this term, a suit by a black
employee fired by Cracker Barrel. The law at issue here is the
historic, if long under-enforced, Civil Rights Act of 1866, which
gave freed slaves equal rights in making and enforcing contracts.
The question before the court is whether this Reconstruction-era
statute bars employers from retaliating against workers who
complain of racial bias on the job. At oral argument last week, a
number of justices, perhaps a majority, seemed poised to rule
that even if the law covered retaliation, the court would not
allow a victim of discrimination to go to court and enforce this
mandate, even though he or she could sue to enforce other
violations of the law. Without the ability to sue, any protection
provided by the Civil Rights Act against retaliation becomes
essentially useless.
It is extremely hard to reconcile what the court has done in
cause-of-action cases like Stoneridge with its approach to preemption cases like Rowe, Riegel, and Preston. In the cause-ofaction cases, the court says Congress must unmistakably express
its intention to allow people to go to court to enforce federal
mandates. If Congress isn't crystal-clear, potential plaintiffs are
out of luck. But in the pre-emption cases, the court seems
untroubled by a lack of clarity on Congress' part, ruling that
federal law pushes aside state actions or remedies when it's not
at all certain that's what Congress so intended. There's one thing
these approaches do have in common: They both favor business
interests.
The Chamber of Commerce also appears to have won the day in
disputes over the role of the jury in deciding contract and
liability disputes that might be costly for businesses. The
Preston decision this term caps a long line of rulings, dating
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
from 1984, in which the court has interpreted the Federal
Arbitration Act effectively to displace state juries in a vast
number of contractual disputes. And in a suit against Exxon
argued at the end of February, the court seemed poised to
substitute for the jury's view its own idea of the appropriate level
of punitive damages for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, as the
justices have repeatedly done in punitive damage cases over the
past decade.
The court's disdain for jury trials was especially evident at oral
argument in Riegel, the case about manufacturer liability for
medical devices. Justice Scalia responded to Riegel's argument
about the importance of preserving the judgment of the state jury
by declaring "extraordinary" the very notion that a "single jury"
could find a company liable for a defective product when the
"scientists at the FDA have said [the product] is OK." This is a
remarkable statement for a justice who professes to be bound by
the Constitution's original meaning. Many things are obscure
about the framing era, but this we know for certain: The framers
of our Constitution loved juries. In siding with the chamber and
viewing the jury more as a threat to the modern economy and
less as a bulwark of our system of justice, the court is departing
sharply from what our framers would have wanted.
There will surely be other cases this term that the Chamber of
Commerce loses. The game is not rigged. Rather, by investing
heavily in legal strategy and working patiently in case after case,
the chamber has won victories that have gradually shifted the
ground rules in its favor. For that, the chamber can thank Justice
Powell's advice and deep corporate pockets. For ordinary
Americans and the victims of corporate misconduct, there is
much less to celebrate.
sidebar
Return to article
These groups include the Pacific Legal Foundation, the
Washington Legal Foundation, and the Chamber's own National
Chamber Litigation Center. In addition, established power
centers like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation
were founded to organize and orchestrate pro-business litigation
efforts.
low concept
The Fake Memoirist's Survival Guide
How to embellish your life story without getting caught.
38/124
By Christopher Beam
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 1:29 PM ET
The past month has not been kind to literary fabricators. The
self-proclaimed half-Native American/foster child/South Central
gangster Margaret B. Jones turned out to be Margaret Seltzer, a
white girl from the leafy suburb Sherman Oaks. Misha
Defonseca confessed that her Holocaust memoir, in which she
traversed Europe, escaped Nazis, and lived with a pack of
wolves, was a fantasy. Both revelations recall the fallout after
James Frey's 2003 addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces
turned out to be partially fabricated.
Lying to readers and editors is shameful, to be sure. But the real
embarrassment is that these writers got caught. For all their
celebrated imagination, fabulists too often do a shoddy job of
covering their tracks. Examine the trajectories of disgraced
memoirists and you start to see some patterns that could, if
studied closely, help avoid future literary humiliations. To that
end, here are a few tips for aspiring fakers to keep in mind, lest
they get caught in fabricante delicto.
Specificity is your enemy. Write with passionate vagueness.
Avoid precise dates; don't get more exact than the year if you
can help it. Better yet, the decade. One scholar challenged the
authenticity of Misha Defonseca's memoir based on her claim
that her family was deported from Belgium in 1941—in reality,
the Germans didn't deport Belgian Jews until 1942. Frey was
undone when the Smoking Gun discovered he had spent only a
few hours in jail, not three months. When in doubt, go with
"awhile."
Write what you know—but no one else does. Stick with
obscure locations, cultures, and subject matter. The second you
start treading turf where there are "experts," you might as well
surrender. Norma Khouri wrote the best-selling 2003 book
Forbidden Love, which recounts the honor killing of her best
friend in Jordan. She was outed when a Jordanian reader spotted
blatantly ahistorical details. For example, the unisex hair salon
where much of the story takes place could not have existed by
law in the mid-1990s. While reading Defonseca's memoir, a
scholar pointed out that, among other errors, wolf saliva does not
actually work as an antiseptic. A tube of Neosporin would have
been far more believable.
Be a victim. Holocaust survivor, recovered addict, former
prostitute, child soldier, Native American. Better yet, some
combination thereof. This way, you'll make people nervous
about doubting your testimony. Practice looking offended in the
mirror.
Check your paper trail. Khouri was done in by passport
records. Defonseca's elementary school register gave the lie to
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
her scribblings. JT Leroy, who claimed to have been a crossdressing teenage truck-stop prostitute, was exposed as Laura
Albert after the advance for Leroy's first book, Sarah, was traced
to Albert's sister. Again, siblings can be trouble. Maybe best to
be an only child?
Don't leave witnesses. Margaret Seltzer did a nice job of
making her imaginary siblings hard for a meddling reporter to
track down. In the New York Times' review of her memoir, we
learn that her brother Terrell was "killed by the Crips at 21" and
her youngest sister, NeeCee, "killed herself three years ago."
Unfortunately, her real sister, Cyndi Hoffman, is very much
alive. When she saw Seltzer's photo in the Times, Hoffman
phoned the publisher and outed her. Warning: If your sister was
always tattling on you as a kid, address this problem before the
profile in the Times House & Home section.
Don't leave clues! This should go without saying, but fake
memoirists have an embarrassing penchant for leaving
fingerprints all over the murder weapon. The epic quest to undo
Defonseca received a boost when sleuths noted that the U.S.
edition of Misha mentioned the author's real name, Monique De
Wael, and the U.K. edition included her date of birth. An equally
dumb move exposed "Forrest Carter," whose "autobiography" of
a Native American child, The Education of Little Tree, became a
phenomenon in 1976. Carter, it turns out, was actually a white
supremacist and former Klansman named Asa Carter. The
evidence that brought him down? A copy of the book inscribed
by "Forrest (Asa) Carter."
Don't tell anyone—especially your biographer. Another point
that should be obvious. But none other than Nadine Gordimer
made the mistake of confessing to her biographer, Ronald
Suresh Roberts, that she had fabricated parts of an
autobiographical essay published in The New Yorker in 1954.
She hasn't denied his account but accused Roberts of a breach of
trust. Ahem.
Beware of blurbs. Defonseca's memoir raised the eyebrows of
two scholars who were asked to blurb her book. They warned
the publisher that it was fantasy, but the book hit shelves—and,
this year, theaters—anyway. If you made up your story, don't ask
scholars to blurb it. That's just playing with fire.
When cornered, confess. There's nothing sadder than a
fabricator railing against indisputable evidence. (Exhibit A:
Norma Khouri.) Acknowledge your sins. Feel free, however, to
insist that you're telling the "emotional truth." The details don't
matter, as long as you're painting an accurate picture of how you
felt—real truth is for stenographers. When needed, scapegoats
can include childhood trauma, a breakup, drugs, or gender
confusion. Worst-case scenario: long, tearful, Oprah-assisted
soul-searching. Best-case scenario: another book deal.
39/124
forbidden pathway."
—Editor & Publisher, March 11, 2008
low concept
Worst Publishing Week Ever
A phony Holocaust memoir. A made-up tale of a gangland childhood. What's
next?
By Daniel Engber
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 6:24 PM ET
Author Ishmael Beah's bestselling account of his time as a child
soldier was proved factually flawed last night by a document
found in a remote Sierra Leone schoolhouse.
—The Australian, Feb. 2, 2008
In a statement issued by her Belgian lawyer, Misha Defonseca of
Dudley, whose book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,
has been translated into 18 languages … confessed that she is
not Jewish and that she spent the war safely in Brussels.
—The Boston Globe, Feb. 29, 2008
In Love and Consequences, a critically acclaimed memoir
published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a
half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in SouthCentral Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers,
running drugs for the Bloods. The problem is that none of it is
true.
—The New York Times, March 4, 2008
****************
Barack Obama invented several important details in his
acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of
Race and Inheritance, according to a memo distributed by the
Clinton campaign as polls opened yesterday. The book describes
Mr. Obama's experiences after the accidental death of his black
African father in 1982. The senator's father was born in San
Francisco, Calif., not Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya, as was alleged
in the book, the memo claims. "Charles 'Chip' Obama spent
every day of his life in the Bay Area, including the 24 years he
spent working in a co-op bakery."
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 5, 2008
Two authors confessed this week to fabricating salacious
memoirs at the behest of disgraced publisher Judith Regan.
Jenna Jameson, author of the best-selling How To Make Love
Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, told reporters on Monday
that she was still a virgin and that "true love waits for strippers,
too." The following day, former ballerina Toni Bentley admitted
that her book The Surrender was inappropriately marketed as an
autobiography; in reality, she never experienced "emancipation
through the backdoor," nor, indeed, any activity involving "the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
A critical edition of The Confessions of St. Augustine published
by the University of Oxford Press has renewed fierce debate
over the life and times of the fourth-century Christian
philosopher. A number of high-profile professors now believe
the author's famously sinful youth to be rife with exaggeration.
"There's just no reason to believe that the thornbushes of lust
ever grew rank about his head," says historian Carlo Ricci of the
Pontifical University in Rome. "Take a look at what his
contemporaries were writing—there's just no way a guy from
Hippo would be drinking the invisible wine of a perverted will."
—The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, 2008
James Frey has confessed that he did not personally appear on
Oprah to admit fabricating his drug-abuse memoir, A Million
Little Pieces. "That was Augusten Burroughs, the acclaimed
writer of Running With Scissors," Frey wrote in a letter released
by his lawyer on Monday. "We were doing whippits backstage,
and then all of a sudden Augie takes out a Sharpie, writes
'FTBSITTTD' on his arm, and runs out there." The lawyer said
Frey was relieved to put this all behind him.
—The Seattle Times, April 3, 2008
Pantheon Books has stopped shipping copies of Persepolis and
Persepolis 2 after several bloggers raised troubling concerns
about the autobiographical comic books. Reached by phone on
Wednesday evening, Marjane Satrapi tearfully admitted that she
had taken "extensive liberties" in her depiction of her youth in
Iran. Satrapi does in fact have both lips and eyelids. She also
confessed to "completely making up the whole two-dimension
thing."
—Ain't It Cool News, April 6, 2008
A prominent human rights activist in Sudan has accused fiction
writer Dave Eggers of failing to make up key passages in his
recent novel What Is the What. The book purports to give a nonnonfictional account of a real-life child refugee who endured
years of starvation and violence in Darfur. "I want to know how
this passed the sniff-test with his editors," said Howard
Goldenschmidt of Darfur-NOW. "I mean, man-eating lions? It's
just too good to be not true."
—Associated Press, April 19, 2008
map the candidates
Back to the Trail
After days off for both candidates, Clinton goes to Mississippi and meets
Obama in Wyoming.
By E.J. Kalafarski and Chadwick Matlin
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 5:00 PM ET
40/124
There's little rest for the weary on the campaign trail. With
caucuses scheduled in Wyoming on Saturday and a primary in
Mississippi on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton took only one day off
and was back on the trail Thursday. She had a press conference
in D.C. and went to Mississippi for an event Thursday night.
She'll meet Obama in Wyoming on Friday, as he resurfaces after
two days off.
Map the Candidates uses the candidates' public schedules to
keep track of their comings and goings. A quick primer on your
new election toolbox:





Do you want to know who spent the most time in Iowa
or New Hampshire last month? Play with the timeline
sliders above the map to customize the amount of time
displayed.
Care most about who visited your home state? Then
zoom in on it or type a location into the "geosearch"
box below the map.
Choose which candidates you want to follow with the
check boxes on to the right of the map. If you only
want to see the front-runners, then uncheck all of the
fringe candidates. Voilà! You're left with the cream of
the crop's travels.
Follow the campaign trail virtually with MTC's news
feed. Every day YouTube video and articles from local
papers will give you a glimpse of what stump speeches
really look and sound like. Just click the arrow next to
the headline to get started.
Take a closer look at candidates by clicking on their
names to the right of the map. You'll get the lowdown
on their travels, media coverage, and policy positions.
Click here to start using Map the Candidates.
medical examiner
Is There a Glucometer on Board? How
About an Oxygen Tank?
What doctors need to take care of sick airline passengers.
By Zachary Meisel
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 11:00 AM ET
Last week, a woman died suddenly on a flight from Haiti to New
York. She reportedly began to feel lightheaded, thirsty, and short
of breath midway through the flight; soon after, she collapsed.
This story recalled my own experience trying to help a sick
passenger on a cross-country overnight flight three years ago.
The difficulties I encountered in trying to provide good care
came down to an unglamorous but crucial concern: how medical
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
equipment is organized in a setting where volunteers are
working in an unfamiliar environment with limited supplies and
no back up.
My wife and I are both physicians, and on this flight from Los
Angeles to Pittsburgh, we responded to an announcement asking
for medical assistance for a middle-aged man who had passed
out. The passenger was awake but looked quite ill: He was
breathing rapidly, with cool and clammy skin. He said that he
felt very lightheaded. For a while, we observed him, at the same
time coaxing him to drink some juice and checking and
rechecking his heart rate. But his symptoms persisted: He
continued to look pale and ashen, and we became increasingly
worried. It was hard to assess the cause of his condition, but it
certainly could have been life-threatening. I was particularly
worried about the possibility of a blood clot in his lungs or a
heart attack.
And so we asked for more help from the flight attendant. My
wife wanted the plane's overhead lights turned on so we could
see better. At first, she got nowhere: The flight staff didn't want
to wake the passengers who were sleeping on the red-eye. Next,
the flight attendant handed me a kit that had some, but not nearly
enough, medical equipment: a blood pressure cuff, a
stethoscope, a mask and tubing for oxygen, IV catheters, and a
bag of saline fluid to administer intravenously. I asked for a
glucometer to measure the patient's blood sugar level, and the
flight attendant shook her head that she didn't have one. Another
passenger, who was a diabetic, came forward with her own
device, and I used that to confirm that the patient's glucose was
normal. Finally, we were given a small oxygen tank that was
close to empty.
The details about last week's Haiti-U.S. flight have yet to be
completely reported. So far, the news reports include accusations
of medical equipment that malfunctioned and airline staff who
didn't respond to the passenger's requests for help. On our flight,
mean attendants and broken equipment were not the problem.
The flight attendants weren't uncaring, just slow to realize the
seriousness of the situation. Once they understood that we were
dealing with a potentially real emergency, as opposed to an
anxious passenger (I recall my wife's less-than-subtle
explanation), they were quick to help, including switching on the
lights.
But the organization of the plane's medical equipment proved a
major barrier. Unbeknownst to the flight attendant, there was a
big kit of equipment in addition to the smaller one she had given
me. But the big kit was stocked elsewhere in the plane—along
with a second, and full, oxygen tank. In the end, it turned out
that the plane had everything we really needed—such as a
glucometer and lots of medications to use in emergencies. But
the flight attendants didn't figure this out until we were landing,
at least an hour after the patient became sick.
41/124
At the end of the flight, the attendant confessed she'd been
confused because the last time she needed to access these kinds
of supplies, she had been on a different type of plane where
everything she needed was stocked together. In retrospect, I too
was faked out, by the way the equipment was organized: The
small medical kit I was given had just enough supplies (a mix of
stuff for diagnosis and treatment) to convince me that this was
all there was. If I had been given a bag with, perhaps, only
Band-Aids and a gauze pad, I think I would have insisted on a
search for more and better equipment. The deceptive way in
which the supplies were packed and stored meant that I didn't
have the right tools at the right time to take care of the sick
passenger.
Efforts to improve patient safety in hospitals and other medical
care settings have gained increased attention since the Institute
of Medicine released its 1999 report outlining how common
medical errors are. Organization of medical equipment is an
important part of using the science of human-factors engineering
to improve patient safety. Also called ergonomics, this science
takes into account the design and organization of a particular
environment to improve the way humans function within it. It
borrows from aviation safety, which emphasizes standardization,
checklists, cockpit design, and teamwork. I have written before
about incorporating some of these processes into emergency care
on ambulances. On airline flights, where medical emergencies
are rarer and unexpected, the value of ergonomics may be even
greater. The people using the equipment often cannot rely on
their experience to overcome hurdles thrown up by poor design
or organization like the ones my wife and I encountered.
Fortunately, the passenger whom I cared for improved without
much help. I sat with him until we landed and an ambulance
came to take him off the airplane. I suspect he fully recovered.
But if he had deteriorated instead, I might not have been able to
help him. The February 2008 edition of one of the airlines' inflight magazines contains a letter from the CEO, bragging about
the industry's widespread use of automated external defibrillators
on airplanes. These machines can save a passenger or crew
member whose heart suddenly stops beating. Stocking them is,
doubtless, very important. But passenger safety depends on the
next level of organization: Every plane should contain the same
medical equipment, stocked in the same place, in the same way.
Airline staff should, of course, be well-versed in what they have
and where it all is. In addition, a card or a list, itemizing the
available supplies, medications, and dosages, should be on board
and automatically given to any doctor or nurse or EMT who
offers to assist a sick passenger. I don't know if these rules
would have saved the life of the woman on the plane from Haiti,
but I have little doubt they could help many of the other
passengers who get sick on airplanes every year.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
moneybox
Stagflation Is Back
And it's even worse than you feared.
By Daniel Gross
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 4:25 PM ET
It's like a bad '70s flashback. Oil at $100 per barrel, and now
stagflation. The unhappy coincidence of sluggish growth and
rising inflation, stagflation is economic poison. (Read my
colleague Robert Samuelson's excellent primer on it in
Newsweek.) It is the opposite of the economic idyll of the last
quarter-century, an era of relatively low inflation and relatively
rapid growth.
The stag? Gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of only
0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 and probably isn't doing
much better today. The flation? The Consumer Price Index rose
4.3 percent between January 2007 and January 2008.
The numbers seem positively buoyant compared with our last
serious bout of stagflation in the late 1970s, when inflation rates
spiked to double-digit levels and mortgage rates were in the high
teens. Compared with the mountain of economic woes in the late
Carter years, the economic woes of the late Bush years are a
mole hill. But that doesn't mean those fretting about stagflation
are crying wolf. Here's why.
In his smart new book in the behavioral-economics genre,
Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely writes about the importance
of context: People routinely make business decisions and
judgments by comparing them to recent events rather than to the
distant past. Your relative happiness with your salary and bonus
doesn't rest on comparing it with what you made 10 years ago; it
rests on comparing it with what you made last year and with
what the people sitting next to you are making this year. Yes,
consumers today aren't being ravaged by inflation, high interest
rates, and slow growth as they were in the late 1970s. But that
offers little solace. Consumers compare their purchasing power
and job prospects today with their purchasing power and job
prospects of a year ago or a few months ago. And that's why the
sudden decline in growth late last year and the persistent rise in
prices are a slap in the face. This case of stagflation may be mild
by historical standards. But since we haven't experienced
anything like it in decades, our coping mechanisms are weak.
That's why consumer confidence has fallen off a cliff in the last
several months.
There's another aspect of this context argument. Inflation is
generally on the rise throughout the world, and the rate of
inflation is higher in many parts of the world than it is in the
U.S. But Americans may feel they're getting hurt more than
many of our trading partners by the current inflation. Inflation is
being driven by rising energy and food prices. Commodities—
42/124
wheat, gold, oil, you name it—are getting more expensive.
Another way of thinking about it, however, is that the dollar is
losing ground against wheat, gold, oil, and other commodities.
As the U.S. has pursued fiscal and monetary policies that debase
the currency, the dollar has weakened significantly against many
of the world's currencies. Consequently, when a commodity that
is priced in dollars on a global basis—like oil—goes ballistic,
the chumps who have all of their assets in dollars will get hurt
disproportionately. Americans today pay about $100 for a barrel
of oil. But if you're French, and you're buying oil with the Euro,
which has increased by about 16 percent against the dollar in the
past year, the blow has been substantially cushioned. What's
more, many of the countries that have pegged their own
currencies to the dollar, including China and the Persian Gulf
states, either subsidize gas or use price controls. American
consumers and businesses are, in some ways, uniquely exposed
to the twin ravages of a weak dollar and expensive oil.
We also import much more oil today than we did in the 1970s.
According to the Department of Energy, U.S. net daily imports
have risen from 6.4 million in 1980 to 12.4 million in 2006.
Meanwhile, daily U.S. production has fallen from 3.2 million
barrels per day in 1980 to 1.9 million barrels per day in 2006.
When the U.S. largely fed its own addiction, the high prices
Americans paid at the pump were generally recycled into the
domestic economy. Today, the payments are more likely to wind
up in government coffers in Venezuela, the Persian Gulf, and
Russia.
There's a final reason why even a mild case of stagflation can
prove fatal: leverage. Stagflation implies a rise in fixed costs and
inputs (food, energy, the price of money itself) coupled with
slowing growth in sales and revenues. This dynamic of a rising
bottom line and a stagnant top line shrinks profit margins. If you
have a lot of debt, and if much of that debt is floating-rate or
short-term debt, a horrible combination results. If your entire
business model consists of borrowing huge sums of floating-rate
or short-term debt and using it to buy other assets or debt
instruments that tend to decline in value when inflation rises and
growth stalls, then it's a killer. Unfortunately, that's exactly what
the financial-services sector and the American homeowner have
been doing for the last several years.
moneybox
NAFTA Nonsense
Explaining the Clinton/Obama spat over trade policy.
By Daniel Gross
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 4:37 PM ET
Of all the twists and turns in the Democratic primary campaign,
one of the strangest is the return of the North American Free
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994 and broke
down trade barriers between the three massive, contiguous
nations that dominate the northern portion of the Western
Hemisphere.
Campaigning in Ohio, a formerly industrial state that is rapidly
becoming a postindustrial state, both Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama expressed reservations about the trade deal and
suggested it might need to be revisited. Clinton tried to make a
meal over a report that Obama economic adviser Austan
Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor and an occasional
Slate contributor, told Canadians that Obama's anti-NAFTA
rhetoric was just for show and that they should trust in Obama's
free-trade credentials.
There's something outdated and Kabuki-like about the whole
NAFTA drama, which was manufactured largely for
consumption in Ohio and probably won't be going on a national
tour.
Nationally, China has long since displaced Mexico as the
bugaboo on trade issues. And it's increasingly difficult to argue
that NAFTA has been a national tragedy. Yes, U.S. imports from
Mexico have risen sharply since 1993, from $48 billion to $216
billion in 2006. But U.S. exports to Mexico have tripled in the
same period, from $52 billion to $156 billion. In 2007, according
to the Department of Commerce (PDF), trade with Mexico—
America's second-largest trading partner—accounted for less
than 10 percent of the trade deficit. The truly massive
imbalances in trade these days result from 1) the rising volume
of oil purchases from oil-producing countries and 2) the rise of
imports from truly poor countries, such as China, which can't yet
afford significant American imports. The fact that Mexican firms
now export large quantities of goods to Canada and the United
States means they are creating jobs—and incentives—for
Mexicans to stay at home. In some ways, NAFTA has been a
boon for nativists. Just think how much higher the northward
flow of work-seeking immigrants from Mexico would have been
in the absence of NAFTA.
Mexico and Canada aren't really Ohio's main problems. The last
time I visited the state, I went to a steel plant outside Cleveland
where one of the furnaces was being dismantled and sent to …
China. The state, which has lost large numbers of manufacturing
jobs, is currently experiencing the negative aftereffects of an
economic boom (high unemployment and foreclosure rates),
even though it never felt many of the boom's benefits. So what
accounts for the state's visceral hostility to NAFTA? The Wall
Street Journal yesterday published a poll showing that
Democrats in Ohio disapprove of NAFTA by a 59-13 margin.
(In Texas, only 40 percent of Democrats disapprove while 33
percent approve.) As my Newsweek colleague Keith Naughton
notes, Mexico holds a special symbolic status for employees of
automakers and similar smokestack industries, which used to be
43/124
large presences in Ohio and which moved big chunks of their
production south of the border in the 1980s and '90s.
I also think there's something deeper at work. For the purposes
of the Ohio primary, NAFTA is a two-syllable shorthand for the
larger problems of trade policy. It's less about NAFTA than what
came after. Call it the Great Risk Shift, or the cram down, or the
fraying of the safety net. But people who have blue-collar jobs,
or who have lost them, have suffered a series of blows over the
past three decades: stagnant wages, job insecurity, rising health
costs, and the loss of insurance and pension benefits. Free trade
is a factor—not the factor, but a significant factor—behind these
trends. Unfortunately, the policy response from the Bush
administration and from the Republicans who have, until
recently, dominated Congress has been: Suck on it. This decade,
Washington has been quick to remind the public of the benefits
of free trade, which are real, but has offered painfully little to
those hurt by its effects. Even long-winded politicians speak in
code and shorthand. And when Clinton and Obama traipse
through Midwestern de-industrializing states and promise to
revisit NAFTA, they're not really saying they want to stop the
flow of goods and services from Mexico and Canada. They're
trying to send a signal—clumsily, perhaps—that they understand
that free trade hasn't been an unalloyed good.
Clinton has charged Obama with making calculated remarks in
front of one audience while sending equally calculated signals to
a broader constituency—which is a triangulator calling a threesided figure a triangle. Goolsbee denies whispering sweet
nothings about trade into Canadian ears. But even if he did,
what's the big deal? It could be hypocrisy—or posturing. But
there's another name for it: campaigning. And this is how
mainstream Democrats practice politics these days. (On trade,
Obama and Clinton are actually probably a little right of center.)
They tell aggrieved members of the base (blue-collar workers)
that they understand their pain, and they tell the more-satisfied
members of their base (globalists, Wall Street types) that they're
not going to upset the manzana cart.
Don't expect talk about NAFTA to disappear. The Pennsylvania
primary is coming up, after all. But Canadian policymakers—
and American voters—shouldn't need Austan Goolsbee or
anybody else to tell us that viable Democratic candidates for
national office will 1) make negative comments about free-trade
deals while campaigning in a state where hundreds of thousands
of blue-collar manufacturing jobs have been lost and yet 2) be
committed to free trade should they happen to win.
moneybox
The Unspeakable R Word
Why nobody in Washington wants to say recession.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
By Daniel Gross
Saturday, March 1, 2008, at 7:17 AM ET
Testifying before Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke conducted a master class in the art of understatement
last week. "The economic situation has become distinctly less
favorable since the time of our July report," he said. Consumers,
who account for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, have been
hamstrung by the "continuing contraction of the U.S. housing
market," rising energy costs, and slowing job creation. And
thanks to "tighter credit conditions for some firms," business
spending should be "subdued" for the next several months.
Distinctly less favorable? Subdued? It calls to mind Japanese
Emperor Hirohito's comment on Aug. 14, 1945, that "the war
situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
In recent weeks, abundant evidence has pointed to a recession—
a broad-based contraction of economic activity—from rising
unemployment claims to the continued pain in housing. Wall
Street economists, whose employers have been experiencing
their own private recession since last summer, haven't shrunk
from using the R word. But in certain quarters of Washington,
euphemism and understatement, verging on outright denial, are
par for the course. In an episode of the hit 1970s show Happy
Days, Fonzie, laboring to concede error, repeatedly choked on
the word wrong, unable to get past the "rrr" sound. (Trust me, it
was funny.) In last year's hit comedy Knocked Up, a character,
queasy about using the technical term for terminating a
pregnancy, refers to a procedure that "rhymes with
shmashmortion." Bernanke and the man who appointed him,
President Bush, are clearly coping with similar verbal tics. Call
it a slowdown, cite challenges, or insist the fundamentals are
sound. But please don't call it a recession. Speaking at a press
conference on Thursday, Bush said, "I don't think we're headed
to recession, but no question we're in a slowdown."
Recessions are unspeakable for several reasons. Many have
come to believe (erroneously) that central bankers and
executives, by deploying information technology and superior
management, have engineered the business cycle out of
existence. In addition, the impact of a contraction is so ghastly as
to spur denial. For any debt-laden entity—a consumer, a
company, a government—a decline in revenues can have a very
swift and painful impact. (Think about how soon you'd be
begging for debt forbearance if your salary fell 10 percent
tomorrow.) For a president, it is political poison to admit that an
economic event that rhymes with shmashmession could be
within the realm of possibility. Since recessions sap tax
revenues, they tend to make huge deficits—like the $407 billion
whopper projected for this fiscal year—even larger. And so,
while the Blue Chip Economic Forecast in February cut its
estimate for 2008 growth to 1.7 percent, the Office of
44/124
Management and Budget is sticking to its optimistic forecast of
2.7 percent—nearly 50 percent higher.
But much as central bankers, investors, and politicians would
like to wish it away, the business cycle is like Madonna—one of
those phenomena that just won't leave the stage. The laws of
physics still apply to the U.S. economy. And as a troubling bit of
data from one of the last remaining hot sectors released last
week shows, the gravitational pull of a falling economy can
bring even the most powerful commercial force known to man
crashing to earth.
Since its birth, Google has been in a perpetual growth spurt,
posting insanely impressive metrics of all sorts—from its share
of Internet searches to profits. But last week, the Internet ratings
firm comScore reported that Google's paid clicks—the number
of times Web surfers clicked on ads served up with a search—
fell 0.3 percent between January 2007 and January 2008, even as
the number of searches rose 40 percent in the same period. As
recently as August, Google's ad clicks were rising at a 60 percent
clip. Google's click-through rate—the percentage of ads that get
clicked on, and hence a measure of consumer follow-through on
searches—was also down sharply in January.
These numbers tell us something troubling about Google, and
about the economy at large. Google became the Net's 800-pound
gorilla by defying underlying growth trends of the larger
commercial universe. But now, says Andy Kessler, a Silicon
Valley hedge-fund manager turned author, "Google is big
enough to be affected by cyclical economic forces." Since it
peaked at $747 last November, Google's do-no-evil stock has
plummeted 37 percent, erasing $86 billion in value.
Like other media companies and retailers that depended on
housing and consumer-related business, Google seems to be
suffering from the consequences of declining activity. (These
things are notoriously difficult to quantify, but my unscientific
tally is that 75.196 percent of all Internet ads are for homeequity lines of credit and mortgages.) If the economy is grinding
to a halt, one would expect clicks of all categories to decline.
"Search may be the best advertising medium in the history of the
world," says Internet analyst and Slate contributor Henry
Blodget. "But that doesn't help much when searchers are broke."
If even Google is showing a decline of economic activity in a
big chunk of its domain, it can mean only one thing: We're in the
portion of the economic cycle that rhymes with shmashmession.
movies
Me Want Good Caveman Movie
By Dana Stevens
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 5:25 PM ET
The caveman is a beloved archetype for a reason. Beetle-browed
and quizzical, cognitively challenged but game for anything, he's
a stand-in for us moderns as we try to puzzle out the mystery of
our humanity. The classic caveman—a fur-clad, club-wielding,
wheel-inventing regular guy—is a condensation of assumptions,
speculations, and fantasies about our ancestral past. (That he
never really existed as such was the premise for those brilliant
Geico ads and the short-lived ABC series they inspired.) But
caveman cinema, even at its goofiest, can be a thoughtprovoking genre. Depictions of early humans have the potential
to ask the big questions: Where does language come from? What
should our relationship be to nature, to technology, to other
humans? A good caveman movie also tackles more immediate
concerns: What me do when fire go out? How me escape from
stampeding woolly mammoth?
10,000 B.C. (Warner Bros.), Roland Emmerich's new prehistoric
adventure, disappoints not because it's a bad caveman movie, but
because it isn't one at all. Rather than taking the trouble to
imagine what early civilization might have been like—its
culture, its language, its warfare, its family life—the movie
simply transposes a banal Hollywood epic into Paleolithic times.
Or maybe Mesolithic. Emmerich, who's already done alien
invasion (Independence Day) and environmental armageddon
(The Day After Tomorrow), excels at staging grand-scale chaos,
but he's no stickler for detail. So what if the construction of the
pyramids didn't really overlap with the existence of the woolly
mammoth? Can you honestly say you don't want to see a herd of
crazed mammoths stampeding down the ramps of a pyramid in
progress?
We begin, as Omar Sharif informs us in a mystical voice-over, at
the dawn of mankind in the small mountain settlement of a tribe
called the Yagahl. After his father mysteriously abandons the
clan, a young hunter, D'Leh (Steven Strait), falls in love with a
blue-eyed cavegirl named Evolet (Camilla Belle, looking fresh
from a WB teen drama). When a group of Yagahl tribesmen,
including Evolet, is kidnapped by marauding slave traders,
D'Leh conscripts a band of hunters, including his adoptive
father, Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis), to go in search of them. On their
way, these dreadlocked warriors will encounter the full roster of
prehistoric threats: rival tribesmen, saber-toothed tigers, and a
killer reptilian emu that chomps its way through entire forests of
bamboo. By the time they arrive at the huge, quasi-Egyptian
construction site, D'Leh has become the leader of an army of
oppressed tribes who scheme to overthrow the enslavers and
their veiled, godlike pharaoh. Meanwhile, back at the Yagahl
encampment, an ancient matriarchal figure known as Old
Mother (Mona Hammond) relays the faraway events to the
remaining tribesmen via a kind of psychic closed-circuit TV.
Not this 10,000 B.C. crap.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
45/124
I don't begrudge this plot its stupidity or lack of verisimilitude;
some of my best friends are stupid and far-fetched. What makes
the movie a drag is the pedestrian joylessness with which it
plods through its hypercompressed evolutionary timeline. The
invention of agriculture? Oh, here's a bag of seeds to take home
from your journey. The first encounter with foreign languages?
Hey, luckily there's a guy who can translate them all for you.
One of the movie's biggest disappointments is its failure to have
fun with language. All the Yagahls communicate in
grammatically perfect, vaguely accented English. Even their
mellifluous names (D'Leh? Evolet?) could easily appear on the
roster of a hippie preschool. (Need I invoke the caveman names
from movies of yore: Goov? Creb? Lar? Gaw?) Anthony
Burgess created an entire proto-language for Quest for Fire; the
best Emmerich and his co-writer, Harald Kloser, can do is to
envision a time before the invention of contractions. ("Do not eat
me when I set you free.")
I'm not asking for the anthropological earnestness of the great
early-'80s caveman classics (Quest for Fire, Iceman, The Clan of
the Cave Bear) or the philosophical reach of the first part of
2001: A Space Odyssey, in which technology, war, and space
travel are all invented with the toss of a single bone. But at least
give us the lusty fun of Caveman (1981), in which Ringo Starr
and Dennis Quaid play two bumbling Paleolithic pals living in
the year "1 zillion B.C." 10,000 B.C. profits from the latest in
Homo sapiens technology—the CGI predators are ably rendered
and the digitized battle scenes spectacular (even if they do crib
from Apocalypto and The Two Towers). But in terms of
character development, wit, and simple curiosity, it's dumber
than a Neanderthal.
obit
Farewell to the Dungeon Master
How D&D creator Gary Gygax changed geekdom forever.
By Jonathan Rubin
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 12:17 PM ET
Gary Gygax was the salvation and curse of nerds worldwide.
The co-founder of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, who
passed away on Tuesday at 69, created a form of fantasy
escapism that you could share with others. D&D unified geeks,
giving them accoutrements (multisided dice, colored figurines)
and a language that bound them together. It was a secret club of
sorts, a playground where social outcasts could be themselves
and vent over life's frustrations. That wasn't always a good
thing—playing Dungeons & Dragons didn't generally lead to
activities like going outside or talking to girls. Still, a caffeinefueled marathon D&D session was a place where your geeky
tendencies were something to be celebrated rather than an
affliction to be overcome.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Yes, we all knew, deep inside, that D&D wasn't cool. Being able
to say, "I cast a Level 3 lightning bolt at the basilisk while
averting my eyes so I don't turn to stone" doesn't have the social
pull of "I know a guy who will buy us some alcohol." Even
despite the social stigma, millions of people, me included,
wouldn't have made it through adolescence without Dungeons &
Dragons. A dedicated bookworm, I devoured D&D's rule books.
It was more important for me to know how to repel the undead
or make a flesh golem than to watch baseball or learn karate.
Becoming a dungeon master, the equivalent of a Ph.D. in
geekery, gave me a sense of mastery and accomplishment, not to
mention my first real leadership experience.
Gygax thought a gaming experience wasn't complete without a
good group of people to play with. He co-founded the
International Federation of Wargamers in 1966. A year later, the
first meeting of Gen Con—now a huge gaming convention—
was held in his basement. In 1974, Gygax and his collaborator
Dave Arneson published the Fantasy Game, later renamed
Dungeons & Dragons.
The game Gygax created is easy to describe but difficult to
imagine. My D&D pals and I basically sat around a table "roleplaying"—i.e., pretending to be people with more interesting
lives. Using dice and figurines, we brought to life the fictional
characters we'd created on paper. Like life, Dungeons &
Dragons doesn't have specific goals. The game never quite ends.
Rather, you choose your path, grow, and suffer setbacks.
Sometimes you have to start all over. Most of the game takes
place in your head, with the dungeon master acting as referee
and director. He sets the scene by describing what your character
sees or, in the case of a spear thrust into your neck, feels.
The genius of D&D is the way it parcels out rules and fantasy.
The game tethers the imagination just enough to keep you
focused on an imaginary world (main goal: slaying nasty things
for profit) without putting limits on what you could do inside
that world. Dungeons & Dragons is like the greatest Etch A
Sketch on earth: It gives you the tools to create whatever you
want.
While D&D certainly encourages creativity, the ingredients
Gygax conjured weren't exactly original. The game's stew of
swords, sorcery, and mythological beasts was mostly
appropriated from pulp writers and fantasy greats like H.P.
Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien. Gygax's skill in integrating
fantasies, however, was unparalleled—the world of D&D may
have medieval trappings, but its creatures were unbound by time
or place. He took monsters from every culture and folklore, from
the Greek Pegasus to the Japanese Kirin dragon to the Egyptian
sphinx, and made them coexist in a single aggregate world.
Gygax was responsible for creating or adapting the game's
spells, races, and character classes (cleric, fighter, etc.). Perhaps
his essential contribution was to develop a way to translate
46/124
physical characteristics into numbers. An American Gladiator,
for example, might have a "strength" of 18, while a Woody
Allen-like character might have a four. In combining math and
fantasy, Gygax engineered a cocktail that no geek could resist. It
was also his idea to create "levels" and "experience points,"
allowing a character to become more skilled as you spend more
time with the game. This idea made the game impossibly
addictive and helped yield $1 billion in worldwide sales
(according to the BBC), scores of books, miniature sets, board
games, a cartoon show, and a pretty crummy movie.
D&D fans were often super fans. Many painted their own
figurines, went to conventions dressed up as orcs, or spent nights
and weekends gaming. As opposed to other geeky addictions,
though, this one was social (kind of). While it might have been
socially detrimental to be known as the best dungeon master in
all of middle school, it's also true that some people just don't fit
in very well. D&D can provide a social outlet and a way to kick
ass without being afraid of getting your ass kicked. Running a
D&D campaign took a lot of paperwork, a lot of organization,
and a lot of focus. I spent hours creating creatures, towns, and
dungeons that that I didn't always end up using. I liked some of
these scenarios so much I turned them into stories, and these
experiences were one reason I decided to become a writer.
While Dungeons & Dragons has been a source of inspiration for
innumerable people in the last three decades, none of Gygax's
post-D&D projects proved particularly successful. Quarrels with
staff led to his departure from his company, Tactical Studies
Rules, in 1985. Both he and TSR failed to take the lead in the
newest role-playing sensations, most notably video games (some
of the D&D games did well, but Gygax's online RPG Lejendary
Adventure Online never got off the ground) and collectible card
games (TSR was eventually bought by Wizards of the Coast,
owner of the mega-successful Magic: The Gathering franchise).
Some people have blamed Gygax's failings on the fact that he
was always more gamer than businessman. He grew unhappy
with later versions of D&D, declaring them "rule intensive" and
more focused on singular achievements than group cooperation.
Perhaps his purist belief in an anything-goes fantasy world
became out of fashion in the greedy 1980s and disaffected
1990s. For whatever reason, people grew more interested in
turning their characters into godlike beings and got less focused
on the intricacies of team play. (Sort of like the NBA.)
Despite his late-career failings, Gygax's innovations have
continued to spread. In creating the greatest nerd hobby of all
time, he built the foundation of every future role-playing game.
His idea to assign numbers for health, armor, stamina, and magic
has also provided the backbone for innumerable video games,
including the Final Fantasy series and the blockbuster World of
Warcraft. Wherever geeks cluster, whether playing a Pokemon
card game or a video game like Oblivion, they're playing by the
rules that Gary Gygax laid out. It's fitting that through Gygax's
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
creativity and inspired descendents, the realm of nerddom has
found eternal life.
other magazines
Remembering William F. Buckley
The Weekly Standard and Newsweek eulogize the conservative stalwart.
By Morgan Smith
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 4:07 PM ET
Weekly Standard, March 10
A cover package memorializes conservative icon William F.
Buckley. Editor William Kristol writes that Buckley "knew that
different kinds of conservatism could possess different elements
of truth—and he would even acknowledge that liberalism might
occasionally glimpse certain aspects of the just or the good." In
another piece, Slate contributor Christopher Hitchens observes
that Buckley "was never solemn except or unless on purpose,
and seldom if ever flippant where witty would do, and in saying
this I hope I pay him the just tribute that is due to a serious
man." … A piece frets about Republican prospects in upcoming
Senate races, noting if Democrats win seven of the 10 Senate
seats in play this year, a "GOP majority [will be] out of reach for
many election cycles. And, assuming they can pick off a few
liberal Republican votes, they'll have the effectively filibuster
proof Senate needed to pass an Obama administration's
legislative wish list."
Newsweek, March 10
Buckley also makes this cover. One piece notes, "While he could
deploy a sometimes vicious wit—which could descend into
cruelty—Buckley disdained the kind of partisan shoutfests that
too often pass for political debate on our TVs today." And
Michael Gerson declares that Buckley "made it possible to be a
conservative without being a crackpot. He did more than smooth
conservatism's rough edges; he exorcized its tortured soul." …
An article analyzes the hanging suicide deaths of 17 teens in the
small Welsh coal-mining town of Brigend. The problem isn't
localized to Brigend: Wales' suicide rate "is nearly twice that of
the United Kingdom as a whole." Officials investigating the
deaths report that all of the victims used the social networking
site Bebo and note that "suicide can spread like a virus over the
internet."
Mother Jones, March/April
A special issue on American torture contains a disturbing article
about ordinary soldiers' attempts to question interrogation
practices they witnessed in Iraq. One reports that he saw a
prisoner beaten for two hours, only to discover later the detainee
couldn't speak Arabic or English (the languages he was
47/124
interrogated in). The soldier then "hid behind a building and
cried for the first time since his dad's death." Joseph Darby, who
first reported the photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, says,
"People are pissed because I turned in an American soldier for
abusing an Iraqi. They don't care about right and wrong." …
Another piece reviews the unbalanced sentencing of defendants
in the Abu Ghraib court-martials. Pfc. Lynddie England, the
lowest ranking defendant, was sentenced to three years in prison.
During her trial, the Army prosecutor "thundered 'Who can think
of a person who has disgraced this uniform more?' " Lt. Col.
Steven Jordan, the only officer prosecuted, was ultimately
convicted on the single charge of failing to obey an order. He
received a reprimand and a fine equivalent to one month's pay.
The New Yorker, March 10
In the style issue, Michael Chabon essays about superheroes'
unitards, "a silvery pseudoskin that affords all the protection one
needs from radiation and cosmic dust while meeting Code
standards by neatly neutering one, the shining void between the
legs serving to signify that one is not (as one often appears to be
when seen from behind) naked as an interstellar jaybird." … A
Michelle Obama profile develops her image as the reluctant, if
fierce, candidate's wife. "Unquestionably accomplished, but …
not a repressed intellectual, in the mode of Teresa Heinz Kerry,"
Obama would be the first black First Lady and one of the
youngest. … A review looks at the young-adult book series
Gossip Girl, whose author "pulls off the tour de force of
wickedly satirizing the young while amusing them."
Time, March 10
Part of a cover package on experience, a piece explores how the
much-bandied-about term actually translates to presidential
performance and concludes that it "gets its value from the person
who has it"—though when a president learns on the job "we all
pay the tuition." … An article usefully considers Bill Clinton's
paradoxical role in his wife's presidential campaign. Through his
numerous campaign stops for Hillary, "It hasn't always been
clear whether Bill Clinton sees Obama as a threat to his wife's
prospects, or to his own legacy." Some initially viewed him as
her biggest weapon, but as one supporter quips, "[T]hat gun
kicks as bad as it shoots." … Joel Stein investigates Ralph
Nader's recently announced candidacy, noting, "It's important for
people who feel they're not being heard to have the option to
vote for insane, incapable candidates."
poem
"Acorns"
By Linda Pastan
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 7:42 AM ET
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Listen to Linda Pastan read .
a rat-tat-tat
like gunfire
on the tin roof
acorns
are falling
all from a single
tree, a barrage
of acorns
covers the grass
with shells, acorns
as hard as the
casings of bullets
their noisy artillery
keeping us up
at night
so many acorns
all from one tree
relentless
as rookies:
their thwack
after thwack at
batting practice
where are the squirrels?
the gardeners
with rakes?
the farmgirls
their aprons brimming
with acorns to grind
into meal?
the dog cowers
beside the house
the cat hides
under the car
afraid of
the clattering hooves
of acorns
later big oaks
will grow, a forest
of oak trees their roots
will strangle
this house
listen, listen
all from a single
tree
politics
Slate's Delegate Calculator
Texas results are in, and Clinton is more or less where she started.
48/124
By Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson
Friday, March 7, 2008, at 7:02 AM ET
After 36 hours, it's become clear that Hillary Clinton's win in the
Texas primary was nothing more than a symbolic victory. After
some confusion Tuesday night and Wednesday, almost all of the
Texas delegates have been allocated. The news is not good for
Clinton.
The Associated Press has allocated all but 10 of the delegates
and says Clinton leads by only one delegate. The Obama
campaign claims that Clinton actually finished behind Obama in
Texas delegates because of his win in the Texas caucus, netting
him a five-delegate advantage in the state. Regardless, Clinton's
four-point victory in the Texas primary is translating into little
success in the pledged delegate count.


The calculator does not incorporate superdelegates into
its calculations. Superdelegates are unpledged and
uncommitted and therefore can change their
endorsements and convention votes at any time. As a
result, we've simply noted at the bottom of the
calculator how many superdelegates the leading
candidate needs to win the nomination in a given
scenario.
All of the calculator's formulas and data come from
Jason Furman, the director of the Hamilton Project at
the Brookings Institution.
Click here to start using Slate's delegate calculator.
politics
We've updated our delegate calculator to reflect the new
numbers in Texas. We based our Texas delegate count on the
AP's numbers and split the remaining 10 delegates evenly
between the two candidates. As more details are released, we'll
pump them through the math.
But, as we've said before, this isn't all about pledged delegates.
Clinton's wins were most important because they improved her
standing among superdelegates. Clinton can now prove she's a
viable threat, which could help her to overcome the pledgeddelegate deficit she's almost sure to find herself in.
Click the launch module above to use Slate's delegate calculator.
Methodology



The current number of pledged delegates comes from
NBC News' tally.
We estimate the number of delegates based on the
overall state vote, even though delegates are awarded
by congressional district as well. We felt comfortable
making this approximation because in the primaries
through Super Tuesday, there was only a 1.6 percent
deviation between the percentage of the overall vote
and the percentage of delegates awarded in primaries.
The proportion of delegates awarded by congressional
district, therefore, does not differ greatly from the
statewide breakdown.
The calculator does not include Michigan's and
Florida's delegations because the DNC stripped these
states of their delegates as a penalty for moving their
primaries earlier in the electoral calendar. It is possible
that these states' delegations will be seated at the
convention but unlikely if it's a close contest.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Campaign Junkie
The election trail starts here.
Friday, March 7, 2008, at 7:01 AM ET
politics
Achieving the Right Level of Nasty
Obama and Clinton fight and also fight not to fight.
By John Dickerson
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:05 PM ET
When Barack Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, spoke to
reporters on a conference call Wednesday, you could hear a siren
in the background. It was just the usual city sounds outside of his
Chicago office, but it matched the emergency tone of the call. In
the wake of Obama's three losses in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode
Island, Axelrod was opening up a new, aggressive front against
Hillary Clinton. He spooled out a string of accusations about her
undisclosed tax returns and White House records as if he'd been
holding his breath for the last 12 months. In fact, he has. This
was a public attack unlike any the campaign has issued before.
"She is a habitual nondiscloser," said Axelrod, even as he
criticized the Clinton campaign for running a "scorched earth"
series of attacks on Obama recently.
The next day, Clinton's communications director, Howard
Wolfson, followed with the political equivalent of Godwin's law
by charging that the Obama campaign was imitating Ken Starr.
At this rate, the campaigns will be trading expletives by April
(that's already happening inside the Clinton campaign). If
anything will save us from a perpetual seven-week harangue
before the key Pennsylvania primary, it's that the penalty for
going negative has increased at the same time that the candidates
are increasingly tempted to push each other down the stairs.
49/124
Instead of full-throttle, we may instead see each candidate with
one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake over the next
stretch.
It has been the natural rhythm of this campaign that when the
candidates get tough, they back off. At the South Carolina
debate in January, Clinton and Obama were as accusatory, bitter,
and snippy as they had been all season; by the next contest, they
were competing to describe how honored they were to run
against the other. Checking the reconciliation reflex this time is
the increased motivation the candidates have to attack. The
Clinton team is convinced that the contrasts it drew with Obama
helped win Ohio and Texas. Exit polls show that voters who
made up their minds in the last three days, when Clinton's
attacks were at their zenith, moved toward her. The campaign
shows no sign of letting up. (With all that blood in the water,
why swim away?)
The Obama campaign recognizes that taking the high road isn't
an effective rebuttal—hence the Axelrod call Wednesday and
Obama's raising of questions about Clinton's tax returns on the
campaign trail.
The Clinton team is setting the same trap for Obama my 4-yearold sets for her older brother. She hits him, knowing that he'll get
in trouble for hitting back. Right on cue, Clinton's senior aide
Ann Lewis set it up. "I didn't realize their version of new politics
was to recycle old Republican tactics," she said. If voters put
both campaigns in the corner for a timeout, it may hurt Obama
more, because his claim to be a new kind of above-the-fray
candidate means he's held to a higher standard. If Obama pays
no penalty for the fracas, the Clinton folks still take him for a
roll in the dirt where he can't offer his appealing message of
hope, change, inspiration, and hope. Clinton, by contrast,
reinforces her fighter image.
This is not a new dilemma for Obama. We've been talking about
it for a year. What's new is that he is under more pressure than
ever to punch back. It's not just that he can't let Clinton's attacks
hang in the air. He has to show Democrats that he's a fighter,
too. The questions the Clinton campaign has been raising about
him lately have all been in bounds, despite what Obama aides
say. Obama's abilities as commander in chief, his ties to indicted
longtime political ally Tony Rezko, and his position on NAFTA
are all worthy subjects for debate. If he's going to be the
nominee, he's going to face a lot worse from Republicans—and
the barrage will be constant if he's president.
I'm still waiting for Obama to show us how he'll apply his gifts
to these kinds of fights. In the meantime, he's smart to start with
the conventional attack on Clinton's tax returns. Hillary's
campaign has no substantive reason for not releasing the returns
she's filed since she left the White House. They're presumably in
a drawer in Chappaqua, N.Y., or in an accountant's office. It
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
seems that she could present them in an afternoon if she wanted
to.
The good news for Obama is that Clinton also may run into
trouble if she looks too mean. It's not so much that primary
voters in future contests might get turned off—they've proven to
be pretty resilient this cycle. It's that Clinton's path to the
nomination is highly volatile, and she'll only increase the chance
for a political explosion if it looks like she won by playing ugly.
Barring some extraordinary event, Clinton is not going to catch
Obama in the race for pledged delegates. To win the nomination,
she'll have to persuade superdelegates to upend the pledgeddelegate totals. Her best chance at making this case may come if
she wins the popular vote, at which point she could say that the
people are with her. Absent that, she's going to have to argue
that while Obama has the people and the pledged delegates, she's
more electable because Obama is deeply flawed.
This is going to be a very delicate argument. According to the
exit polls from Tuesday, two-thirds of Democratic voters said
the superdelegates should vote based on the outcome in the
caucuses and primaries, which means they should choose
Obama. Clinton would be asking the party that thinks of itself as
the protector of voting rights to unseat an African-American
candidate who, if he stays ahead in the popular vote, has the
voters' will behind him.
The strongest argument Clinton aides make on this score is that
it's completely legal and fair for the superdelegates to choose
whichever candidate they think is better. But legal and fair
doesn't mean people will buy it. They'll be even less pleased if
they think Clinton cheated or attacked Obama unfairly.
According to those Tuesday exit polls, two-thirds of voters
already do. That's why the Obama campaign will up the public
umbrage they take at each little Clinton jab. Time to start
sounding that alarm.
politics
She Lives!
Clinton has come back, but has she come back far enough?
By John Dickerson
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 12:58 AM ET
During Hillary Clinton's 11 straight losses to Barack Obama, her
aides and allies started talking about the Clinton roller coaster.
She wasn't in a death plunge, they said; it was just a steep drop
before an inevitable upward rise. By winning the Ohio and
Texas primaries Tuesday, Clinton got that lift, but her campaign
seemed less like a roller coaster and more like Lufthansa flight
50/124
LH 044, a careening near-death experience that stabilized only at
the last white-knuckle moment.
But what exactly did Clinton gain with her extraordinary win?
The Democratic race has come down to a contest of numbers
versus narrative. The numbers are on Barack Obama's side.
Clinton won three of four primary contests after being outspent,
and in the face of Obama's momentum, but didn't much diminish
Obama's pledged-delegate lead of more than 100. Barring a
cataclysmic event, Clinton isn't going to take the delegate lead
from Obama, which means he can still make the case that he is
the candidate of the people. He will argue that the 800-odd
superdelegates who will determine either candidate's victory
should side with the voters. When Georgia superdelegate Rep.
John Lewis this week switched from supporting Clinton to
Obama, he said he wanted to be with the people and on the right
side of history. Obama will bank on the fact that the party of
voting rights is not going to overthrow the will of the people to
deny the nomination to the first African-American candidate.
Exit polls show Obama has support for his argument. Roughly
two-thirds of voters in the four contested states said that
superdelegates should vote based on the outcome of the caucuses
and primaries and not their own priorities.
Hillary Clinton is trying to make the story matter more than the
numbers, and what she won Tuesday were some good talking
points for her narrative. She's got to make the case to the roughly
300 undecided superdelegates that they should overlook
Obama's advantage among pledged delegates. Her argument has
two parts: Obama doesn't represent the Democratic Party, and he
is a flawed general election candidate.
How is Obama a flawed Democrat? He can't win big states, her
aides will argue. Clinton has now won Ohio, Texas, New York,
California, and New Jersey. Obama has only limited appeal, they
will argue, whereas Clinton wins the kinds of Democrats
necessary to win in big, electorally rich states. But it's not that
simple. Obama won electorally crucial swing states such as
Missouri, Colorado, and Wisconsin, and he's won all across the
country, so his appeal isn't that limited.
Clinton aides will also return to the argument that she captures
bread-and-butter blue-collar voters. In Ohio, Clinton won 56
percent to 43 percent among voters with no college education.
She also dominated among union households, though Obama
had several unions working for him. The economy was the No. 1
issue in both states. Democrats who believe paychecks, jobs, and
health care will be the dominant issues in the fall might be
convinced by her argument that she is the only one who can
deliver them.
Here again, though, Clinton's case isn't airtight. Obama won
among the working class in Wisconsin, and he also won
working-class white men in Wisconsin, Missouri, and New
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Hampshire. In the last three weeks, Obama had been making
inroads in Ohio with those lacking a college degree, narrowing
Clinton's margin from 26 points to eight points. This suggests
that while Clinton won blue-collar voters in the end, their vote
was more up for grabs than the Clinton folks claim.
Clinton aides will try to take advantage of the party's perception
of itself. She fought back. Democrats like fighters. She's a bloodand-guts Democrat at her core, which makes her a natural fit for
the party. In making her third comeback of the race, Clinton
showed voters that she could do for herself what she'd been
promising to do for them on the stump. Clinton hit that theme in
her victory speech. "For anyone ... who's ever been counted out
but refused to be knocked out," she said, "for everyone who's
stumbled and stood right back up ... this one is for you."
The second prong of Clinton's argument—that Obama is a risky
choice for the general—is more tenuous but may be more potent.
Clinton played hardball during the past week, raising questions
about Obama's position on NAFTA, his unanswered questions
about longtime fundraiser Tony Rezko, and his qualifications to
be commander in chief. The Obama campaign complained that
this was a part of what one Clinton ally called the throwing the
"kitchen sink" strategy, but the attacks were inbounds.
Unlike Clinton's loony effort to tag Obama as a plagiarist, these
attacks may have been effective. The attacks picked up in the
final days before the vote, and Clinton won handily among
voters who made up their minds in the last three days. In earlier
contests, Obama had done better with voters who had decided in
that time period. But the attacks were not cost-free for Clinton.
Voters by a margin of 52 percent to 36 percent told exit pollsters
that Clinton was the candidate who attacked unfairly.
On NAFTA, Obama helped Clinton throw him off message on
an important issue. Clinton picked up on a news report that
claimed Obama's chief economics adviser had back-channel
discussions with Canadian officials to let them know Obama's
opposition to NAFTA was merely political posturing. Obama's
denials about the meeting turned out to be inoperative, and his
aides then issued parsing denials. Though the story was not as
explosive as first reported, there was more to it than the
campaign let on. The behavior looked like old-fashioned
political ass-covering, not the new kind of transparency Obama
has been promising for the last year. It also seemed odd that
Obama, who has promised to have full C-SPAN coverage of his
administration's hearings, would keep the aide closeted from
facing questions from the press corps.
Did Clinton's children-in-peril ad pay off? Even before the
results were in on Tuesday, it seemed to. As late as 3:30 p.m. on
Election Day, the Obama campaign held a conference call to
push back hard against it. Greg Craig, an Obama supporter but
longtime Clinton friend and Bill Clinton's lawyer during his
impeachment trial, unloaded on Clinton. Saying that she would
51/124
"do anything to win this nomination," Craig repeatedly asserted
that she had failed her "commander-in-chief test" multiple times
with respect to the Iraq war.
Exit polls don't give clear evidence that the ad paid off. When
voters were asked which candidate was the most qualified to be
commander in chief, Clinton won 54 percent to 40 percent in
areas of Texas where the ad ran, but Clinton has always done
well on that question, and those differentials were in the
midrange of her previous performances. On the question of
which candidate has more experience, voters gave Clinton her
usual wide margin of more than 80 percentage points, but only
28 percent of voters in Ohio said that was the most important
quality.
The larger point the Clinton aides will make to superdelegates
and voters in the next big primary state of Pennsylvania is that
the Texas and Ohio results reflect what happens when the two
candidates are compared side by side. Obama can give speeches
and draw crowds, but when it comes to matching him against a
competitor, as the general election will demand, Obama can't
stand up to the comparison. Will any of the Clinton arguments
work? We'll see in the coming days if hundreds of
superdelegates allow the primary process to continue without
continuing to move toward Obama. Clinton is pleading for time,
arguing that voters should be allowed to have their say in future
contests. But even in this she comes up against a contradiction
posted by Obama's lead. Because she must rely on the
superdelegates to beat back Obama's likely lead in the popular
vote and among pledged delegates, she is essentially asking
those superdelegates to listen to the people—but only long
enough to be persauded to vote for her. Then she expects them to
undo the will of the people by voting against Obama in Denver.
Clinton has rescued her campaign from free-fall, but the ride
from here to the nomination is still going to be very bumpy.
politics
Clinton's big-state wins, the crucial difficulty of a former first
lady who embodies Restoration competing in an election in
which change is the watchword. And here's another explanation
for this remarkable reversal of fortune, one that represents for
me one of the few really reliable rules of presidential political
warfare: Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.
As shaped by genius animator Chuck Jones—he didn't create the
Warner Bros. icons, but he gave them their later looks and
personalities—Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how
to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure,
confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he
knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his
adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the
fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a
smoking jacket. (Jones once said Cary Grant was his inspiration
for Bugs. Today it would be George Clooney.) Bugs never raises
his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is
rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must
respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you
realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless
hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging
bull, Bugs always prevails.
Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He
fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body
tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer
("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly
frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own
overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs,
the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other—until
Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!"
"Hmmm," he adds a moment later in a rare bit of self-scrutiny.
"Pronoun trouble."
Now here's the Obama-Clinton parallel: In every modern
presidential election in which the candidates have personified a
clear choice between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Bugs has
prevailed.
Bugs Bunny vs. Daffy Duck
Why voters always choose the wascally wabbit for president.
By Jeff Greenfield
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 11:55 AM ET
How did we reach the point at which Sen. Clinton, the clear
Democratic front-runner six months ago, needs clear wins in
Texas and Ohio to mute the calls for her to end her campaign?
There's no unified field theory that answers this question: You
can give more or less weight to Obama's political magnetism, the
tactical and strategic miscalculations of the Clinton campaign,
the delegate-allocation rules that weakened the punch of
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Go back to 1960, the first campaign in which television was the
clear dominant medium. John "Bugs" Kennedy was cool,
restrained, ironic. Richard "Daffy" Nixon was brooding,
suspicious, scowling. Look at 1980, when Ronald Reagan's
sunny approach to the campaign and to the world ("Our best
days are yet to come") stood in sharp contrast to President
Jimmy Carter's talk of a crisis of the spirit. (Maybe the cartoon
duel helps explain why Jimmy Carter had his famous battle in a
boat with a rabbit.)
Or think about 2000, when George W. Bush suggested a
candidate who could easily live with defeat, as opposed to Al
Gore, who seemed wound far tighter. In the most memorable
debate moment that year, Al Gore stood up and began walking
52/124
behind Bush as Bush was answering a question, almost as if
Gore were stalking his opponent (the better to dramatize the
height difference, one Gore aide told me later). Bush looked
over his shoulder, offered a slight "Oh, hi there!" nod, and the
debate was effectively over. It was a classic Bugs vanquishing.
Not every campaign offers such a contrast. And sometimes
political figures change their cartoon stripes: Bill Clinton in
1992 was clearly Bugs. This year, he has turned into Daffy as
Hillary's surrogate, with his red-faced battling, his assaults on
the electoral process in Nevada and now in Texas, his warning
of "Don't let them take it away in the dark!"
Is there any doubt about who is Bugs and who is Daffy between
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? When Clinton insisted that
Obama not simply "denounce" Louis Farrakhan but "reject him,"
Obama shrugged. Well, he said, I don't really see any difference,
but if you think there is, I reject and denounce. Indeed,
throughout the debate, Obama leaned back and asked for time
with the flick of a finger, as if summoning a waiter for another
bottle of wine. Clinton, meanwhile, leaned forward, pushing her
points with grim determination.
The Bugs-Daffy dichotomy gets intriguing when you try to
apply it to the general election. If Clinton pulls out the
nomination, it will be Daffy vs. Daffy. There is no doubt that
John McCain takes on politics with a Daffy-like suspicion of the
corrupt, feckless folks about him. If Obama prevails in the
primaries, we will have a dramatic Bugs-Daffy face-off. And it
may be that McCain will be the candidate to break the losing
Daffy pattern, because he'll be able to argue successfully that in
a dangerous world, you need a president more in touch with the
dark side of human nature. This argument might even work for
Clinton if the primary battle goes on past tonight. Especially
given the current Bugs in the White House.
a previously published essay by Jeffrey Hart in the Dartmouth
Review.
The plagiarism was in a column for a newspaper I used to work
for, the News-Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Ind. The piece was a guest
op-ed about the importance of a good college education written
by Timothy S. Goeglein, a top aide to President Bush. A Fort
Wayne native, he was a hometown boy made good, hired by
Karl Rove in the Office of Public Liaison. Goeglein was the
White House's go-between to religious groups, a "pipeline to the
president," as the Washington Post called him. Why he felt the
need to contribute entirely nonpolitical columns to the
hometown paper, and to the one with the smaller circulation
(Fort Wayne is the smallest two-daily market in the country),
was, until last Friday, a mystery.
Finding the theft took 60 seconds; drafting a post for my blog,
about an hour. I held it overnight to give my ex-colleagues a
little notice and published it at 7:38 a.m. Friday. It was linked
pretty quickly by Romenesko and then by some of the big-traffic
amplifiers (Talking Points Memo, Atrios). I figured the story
would get some notice, but I was unprepared for the turns it
would take.
After posting the original entry, I thought I'd poke around in
some of Goeglein's other published work and see whether
anything else turned out to have been borrowed. As a journalist
whose formative years took place in the 20 th century, I thought
of that, quaintly, as a "second-day" story.
"Second-hour" would have been more accurate. By the time the
post started drawing traffic, other readers were having the same
idea. At 11:03 a.m., a commenter called the Kenosha Kid noted
duplicate passages in a Goeglein column on Hoagy Carmichael
and a Washington Post piece on the same subject by Jonathan
Yardley. At 11:30 a.m., the Journal Gazette, the other daily in
Fort Wayne, had a story up saying Goeglein had come clean in
an e-mail, taken full responsibility, and said, "[T]here are no
excuses."
politics
Gone in 60 Seconds
How my blog started the avalanche that buried presidential aide Tim Goeglein.
By Nancy Nall Derringer
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 4:02 PM ET
I spent much of last Friday being congratulated for "brilliant
reporting" that consisted of a minute's worth of typing on my
laptop. That's how long it took for me to notice what seemed to
be merely a case of egregiously obscure name-dropping ("A
notable professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College in the last
century, Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey, expressed the matter
succinctly. …"), paste the name into Google, and discover the
entire sentence, Rosenstock-Hussey and all, had been lifted from
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
I'd expected a more typical explanation, something about
multiple windows open on the computer desktop, sloppy cutting
and pasting between notes and drafts, something that was at least
remotely plausible and face-saving. But surely Goeglein knew
what else was coming.
At 11:59 a.m. and noon, two other commenters on my blog,
Adam Stanhope and Grytpype Thynne, had found more
wholesale borrowings, these in a piece on composer Gian Carlo
Menotti. The original, by Robert R. Reilly in Crisis magazine,
was written in the first person and contained such observations
as, "Despite criticism, Menotti never surrendered the role of
beauty. We can now hear one of his strongest expressions of it in
the appropriately named Missa: O Pulchritudo. … My first
53/124
reaction was: What kind of cultural prejudice kept this recording
on ice for 25 years?"
Goeglein lifted it all, right down to Reilly's first reaction about
cultural prejudice.
From there, it snowballed. By day's end, the official count of
cut-and-paste columns was 20 out of 38 submitted since 2000,
but the paper's reporters continued to check, and on Monday the
total was revised to 27. Goeglein submitted his resignation on
the way out the door Friday, less than 12 hours after my first
posting.
Saying the news cycle moves at an ever-increasing pace doesn't
even qualify as a cliché anymore. But this felt like a new record.
Reporting in one minute, writing in one hour, a whole career
undone in one day. Reading the comments piling up on the
original post was a surreal experience, as one reader after
another checked in with evidence, with links. It was journalism
as hive mind. "Everyone wants to play now," someone wrote
after posting a link.
I spent much of the weekend thinking about all this. My excolleague Leo Morris, who edits the op-ed pages Tim used as his
canvas for all those years, did as well and wrote on his blog:
"This wasn't mere hardware-pushed speed—a breaking news
story for which people all around the world could see a grainy
cell-phone photo five minutes after it happened. This was the
online dynamic—people talking about the story and adding to it
as it got bigger and more complex throughout the day."
The story was new media, but, ironically, at its core was a very
old-media concern—getting the little things right. Friday night, I
got an e-mail from a fan of that notable Dartmouth professor of
philosophy whose name started this whole thing. And guess
what? Jeffrey Hart misspelled his name. It's Eugen RosenstockHuessy, not Eugene, not Hussey. When I entered the misspelled
name into Google, it only turned up a couple pages of hits, and
Hart's essay was on the first page, so I spotted it right away. But
if Hart had spelled the name correctly and Goeglein had pasted it
as such in his own column, Hart's decade-old Dartmouth Review
essay, which mentioned the professor only in passing, would
probably have been far back in the queue in the 20,000 Google
hits his real name gets. And I probably would not have seen it—
after all, I was just trying to find out how "notable" he was.
When a journalist gets caught plagiarizing the first time, he can
usually duck the charge by claiming that the theft was really an
accident. I mistakenly mixed my own notes and a Nexis dump.
Or, It was a cut-and-paste error. But when a journalist gets
caught plagiarizing a second time, it's much harder for him to
plead to a mere blunder.
Last month, the New York Times conceded plagiarism when I
informed it that a Feb. 23 Times dispatch had lifted—almost
verbatim—two lines from an 18-month-old Miami Herald story
about the illicit drug paco. The Times reporter, Alexei
Barrionuevo, told his bosses that he didn't remember pinching
the lines from the Herald but acknowledged that he must have
retrieved them while Googling for information.
A second case of plagiarism by Barrionuevo has come to my
attention. On July 15, 2005, Bloomberg News moved a story
about the United States lifting "mad cow" import restrictions on
Canadian cattle. On July 16, 2005, the Times ran a very similar
story, also pegged to a conference call with Secretary of
Agriculture Mike Johanns.
The Times echoes the earlier Bloomberg piece in at least four
passages. (The Times passages are reproduced slightly out of
sequence for the purposes of comparison.)
Bloomberg News:
The first shipments from Canada may arrive at
U.S. slaughterhouses in days, U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Mike Johanns said today in a
conference call.
New York Times:
The first shipments from Canada could arrive
at American slaughterhouses as early as next
week, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
said in a conference call with reporters.
Bloomberg News:
USDA and Canadian officials are coordinating
how to certify animals for shipment, he said.
New York Times:
press box
More Plagiarism, Same Times Reporter
Alexei Barrionuevo helps himself to Bloomberg News copy without attribution.
By Jack Shafer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:32 PM ET
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Officials in Canada and the United States are
coordinating how to certify the animals for
shipment, he said.
Bloomberg News:
54/124
A U.S. appellate court yesterday ruled in favor
of the government, which argued Canadian
cattle under 30 months of age don't pose a risk
of mad-cow disease.
transgression does not seem to be as serious as
the first instance on paco.
I disagree with Abramson about the seriousness of the
transgression.
New York Times:
A United States appeals court ruled on
Thursday in favor of the government, which
had argued that Canadian cows under 30
months of age did not pose a risk of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow
disease.
The New York Times Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism
states very simply why plagiarism is wrong and how the
company deals with it:
Staff members or outside contributors who
plagiarize betray our fundamental pact with
our public. … We will not tolerate such
behavior.
Bloomberg News
******
Tyson's beef business had a loss of $19 million
in the quarter ended April 2, as the lack of
available cattle boosted costs and led to plant
closings. Canada before the ban supplied about
5 percent of U.S. beef.
New York Times:
Tyson's beef business recorded a loss of $19
million in the quarter ended April 2. The
company was hurt by the ban on cattle from
Canada, which increased costs and led to
temporary plant closings. Before the ban,
Canada supplied about 5 percent of the
nation's beef.
Lest anyone argue that an assignment spawned by a mad cow
conference call is likely to produce very similar stories, see this
sidebar, where I juxtapose the opening paragraphs of the
Bloomberg piece (July 15) and Times piece (July 16) with the
opening paragraphs of mad cow conference call stories
published on July 15 by the globeandmail.com and the Omaha
World-Herald.
I alerted Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson to the similarities
between the two articles. Via e-mail she responds:
It appears that Alexei did not fully understand
Times policy of not using wire boilerplate and
giving credit when we do make use of such
material. As I mentioned to you, other papers
do permit unattributed use of such material. He
should not have inserted wire material into his
Times coverage without attribution.
That said, because the new examples do not
involve many words or an original thought, the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Beyond that, I've got nothing to say. Send your notions to
slate.pressbox@gmail.com.
(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: Here's a hand-built RSS feed that will ring
every time Slate runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail
notification of errors in this specific column, type the words mad
cow in the subject head of an e-mail message and send it to
slate.pressbox@gmail.com.
sidebar
Return to article
Comparing the Copy
How different can four news stories generated by the same
assignment be? Compare the opening paragraphs of these pieces
about the 2005 mad cow disease conference call: the Bloomberg
News version; the New York Times version, which lifts passages
from Bloomberg without attribution; and the starkly different
pieces run by the globeandmail.com and the Omaha WorldHerald.
Opening paragraphs from the July 15, 2005, Bloomberg
News story by Daniel Goldstein:
55/124
The U.S. plans to resume imports of Canadian
cattle, after an appellate court cleared the way
to end a ban imposed two years ago because of
mad-cow disease. Cattle prices fell and shares
of beef producer Tyson Foods Inc. surged.
company was hurt by the ban on cattle from
Canada, which increased costs and led to
temporary plant closings. Before the ban,
Canada supplied about 5 percent of the
nation's beef.
The first shipments from Canada may arrive at
U.S. slaughterhouses in days, U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Mike Johanns said today in a
conference call. ``If things go well, it could
very well be next week.'' USDA and Canadian
officials are coordinating how to certify
animals for shipment, he said.
A United States appeals court ruled on
Thursday in favor of the government, which
had argued that Canadian cows under 30
months of age did not pose a risk of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow
disease.
A U.S. appellate court yesterday ruled in favor
of the government, which argued Canadian
cattle under 30 months of age don't pose a risk
of mad-cow disease. Tyson's beef business had
a loss of $19 million in the quarter ended April
2, as the lack of available cattle boosted costs
and led to plant closings. Canada before the
ban supplied about 5 percent of U.S. beef.
Opening paragraphs from the July 16, 2005, New York Times
story by Alexei Barrionuevo:
The United States Agriculture Department said
on Friday that it planned to resume imports of
Canadian cattle within days, after an appellate
court lifted a two-year-old injunction imposed
because of mad cow disease.
The first shipments from Canada could arrive
at American slaughterhouses as early as next
week, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
said in a conference call with reporters.
Officials in Canada and the United States are
coordinating how to certify the animals for
shipment, he said.
"We want to make sure everything is in place,"
he said. "If things go well, it could very well
be next week.'"
The news sent shares of the beef producer
Tyson Foods and McDonald's restaurants
surging. Cattle prices fell. Shares of Tyson
rose 7.5 percent in early trading, and closed at
$19.47 a share, a 5 percent increase, while
McDonald's closed at $30.99 a share, up 4.7
percent.
Opening paragraphs from the July 15 globeandmail.com
story by Terry Weber, time stamped 12:28 p.m.:
The United States is taking immediate steps to
reopen the border to Canadian cattle imports
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said
Friday.
During a webcast, Mr. Johanns said that
Washington has been in touch with Ottawa
and that the two sides are now going through
the logistical steps necessary to resume trade
of live cattle for the first time since May,
2003.
"Our hope is we're talking about days and not
weeks," he said. "If things go well, it could
very well be next week, but we have not set a
specific date."
Late Thursday, a three-member U.S. appeal
court panel in Seattle overturned a temporary
injunction issued by Montana Judge Richard
Cebull halting the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's March plan to reopen the border.
Judge Cebull had sided with U.S. ranchers
group R-Calf in its argument that reopening
the border exposed U.S. ranchers and
consumers to unnecessary risks from mad-cow
disease. The USDA had been planning to ease
restrictions by allowing cattle younger than 30
months to be imported.
Mr. Johanns noted that Canadian officials had
already anticipated the ruling and taken steps
to meet U.S. requirements, should Thursday's
favour reopening the border.
Tyson's beef business recorded a loss of $19
million in the quarter ended April 2. The
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
56/124
"It [the reopening] could be as early as next
week, but we want to make sure everything is
in place," he said.
said. "My hope is that restructuring now will
be abated and this industry can start getting
back to a normal flow of commerce here."
Those requirements, he said, including
ensuring that animals being imported into the
U.S. meet minimal-risk rule criteria, getting
documents to U.S. customs to confirm the
shipments are appropriate for entry.
About 1 million cattle were imported from
Canada in the year before the border closed in
May 2003 when Canada reported its first case
of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy.
Opening paragraphs from the July 15 Omaha World-Herald
story by Chris Clayton:
Canadian cattle could start arriving at U.S.
feedlots and meatpacking plants as early as
next week, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike
Johanns said Friday.
Thursday's unanimous decision by the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals lifting a lower court's
injunction gives U.S. and Canadian officials a
nearly two-week window to begin shipping
live cattle from Canada before another court
hearing, scheduled late this month in Montana.
No date has been set, but Johanns said he will
move as "expeditiously as possible" to begin
importing Canadian cattle once officials work
out the ground rules. Canadian and USDA
officials anticipated the requirements would be
in place at whatever time the legal issues were
resolved.
"Our hope is we are talking about days, not
weeks," Johanns said. "It could be as early as
next week, but we want to make sure
everything is in place. ... If things go well, it
could very well be next week, but we haven't
set a specific date." [Ellipsis in the original.]
Johanns has lamented the closed border since
becoming agriculture secretary in late January,
saying that it hurts U.S. cattle feeders and
meatpackers because the United States
continued to import boxed beef from Canada.
Higher cattle prices because of tight supplies
caused meatpackers to scale back production
at U.S. facilities. Industry officials claim to
have lost as many as 8,000 meatpacking jobs
because of the closed border.
"I'm just worried that many of those jobs were
impacted in a very permanent way," Johanns
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
press box
Watching McClatchy (First in a Series)
As a leading indicator of the newspaper biz's health, what does the chain's
bad news portend for the rest of the industry?
By Jack Shafer
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 5:06 PM ET
Just two years ago, McClatchy Co. President and CEO Gary
Pruitt boasted the sunniest disposition of all newspaper
executives. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he toasted
newspapers as "still among the best media businesses" as his
firm's purchase of the Knight Ridder chain tripled its print
holdings.
Pruitt conceded that newspaper advertising had peaked in 2000,
but he maintained that no competitors in local markets had held
their audiences as well as newspapers. Far from being a "dying
industry," wrote Pruitt, the newspapers were adding the
"unduplicated reach of newspaper Web sites to newspaper
readership" to grow their audiences.
Since Pruitt's declaration, McClatchy stock has fallen, fallen, and
then fallen some more. It's dropped about 75 percent in the past
year and is now trading at less than $10. Last week, the
McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee reported that the company is
taking a $1.47 billion write-down, this following a similar $1.37
billion write-down in November.
Essentially, the write-downs are McClatchy's way of
acknowledging under accounting rules that it paid way too much
for Knight Ridder, that its stock price has vaporized, and that
advertising has croaked. McClatchy's January ad revenue
dropped about 16 percent over the previous year, a company
press release reports. Real estate ads are off 34 percent and
employment ads—a bigger business—fell 30 percent.
By scrutinizing McClatchy's agonies, I don't mean to rub Pruitt's
nose in his optimistic 2006 op-ed. His reputation as one of the
nation's best and most creative newspaper executives makes his
chain a leading indicator of the newspaper future. Other chains
57/124
are experiencing similar downturns, but McClatchy isn't just
another chain. It's supposed to be smarter and more nimble than
the rest, but is it? Did Pruitt show bad geographical judgment by
overinvesting in the wrong markets at the wrong time? He
bulked up on real-estate-driven economies, adding newspapers
in Florida and the Sun Belt, just as those places were about to
decline. He doubled down on newspapers just as newspaper's
core advertisers—real estate, finance, job listings—were opting
out for Web alternatives.
Pruitt must somehow reference his Journal op-ed and admit that
he was wrong about his industry's prospects and then explain
what he's going to do to rectify his error. He bought Knight
Ridder at the peak of the housing bubble and obviously didn't
foresee the subprime crisis. In that regard, he's not alone. The
subprime monster has trashed real estate ad revenue in
California and Florida, home to some of the chain's biggest
papers. "Revenue from California and Florida operations
dropped more than 20 percent," the Bee reports. Newspapers
have traditionally been patient about riding out advertising
downturns, but the subprime disaster may make this downturn
an abyss for McClatchy's most affected newspapers.
As Alan D. Mutter noted in his Newsosaur blog last month,
Pruitt mistakenly jettisoned the Knight Ridder newspapers in
Akron, Ohio; Philadelphia; and the Dakotas in favor of the hothouse Sun Belt properties. Pruitt's plan to grow the Web side of
McClatchy as advertisers migrate there, sketched briefly in the
Journal op-ed, didn't work out, as Mutter reported in another
post last September. "With industry-wide online sales up 20.8
percent in the first half of this year, McClatchy's interactive
revenues gained a meager 1.4 percent through June, according to
the company," he writes.
Tomorrow comes in installments, depending on whom you are
and where you live. By virtue of the bets McClatchy made, it
may be the first chain to enter the newspaper future. (Or will
Sam Zell's Tribune Co. beat him there?) Whatever Pruitt does
with his troubled company newspapers—sell some titles at
depressed prices, cut expenses, cut circulation, cut staff, or
something more inventive—will inform the strategies of other
newspapers. He's got to do something. What will it be?
******
I won't predict because every prediction I've ever made has
turned out wrong. Every. Single. One. Send your McClatchy
predictions to slate.pressbox@gmail.com. (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: Here's a hand-built RSS feed that will ring
every time Slate runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
notification of errors in this specific column, type the words
First McClatchy in the subject head of an e-mail and send it to
slate.pressbox@gmail.com.
recycled
Lies and Consequences
Why are book editors so bad at spotting fake memoirs?
By Meghan O'Rourke
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 3:44 PM ET
Late yesterday evening, Margaret B. Jones admitted to the New
York Times that Love and Consequences, her critically
acclaimed memoir about growing up in a foster home in gangridden South Central Los Angeles, was almost entirely
fabricated. In 2006, in the wake of the scandal surrounding
James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, Meghan O'Rourke wrote a
"Highbrow" column that examined whether disclaimers give
memoirists a license to invent, how publishers should handle
fabrications, and whether it's possible to avoid them in the first
place. The original article is reprinted below.
In 2002, a man published a memoir chronicling his substance
abuse and the months he spent in jail after committing a crime.
When a reporter discovered that the memoir was built around a
fabrication, the author defended his embellishments in the name
of literary license: "What I was doing was a literary genre known
as a memoir," he explained, and pointed to a disclaimer in his
book noting that identifying details had been changed. The man
was not James Frey. He was Jimmy A. Lerner, the author of You
Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish, published by
Broadway Books. The fabrication was a significant one. The
book describes Lerner's murder of a thuggish 6-foot-3 maniac he
calls "the Monster," in a drug-fueled fight to the death in a hotel
room. In fact, as David Kirkpatrick later reported in the New
York Times Magazine, Lerner had actually killed a 5-foot-4
former medical equipment salesman who may not have been
armed.
Confronted with Lerner's and Frey's blithe willingness to tell
lies, it's time to ask: How much leeway does a disclaimer really
give an author? Take the disclaimers that James Frey and his
publishers recently announced they're appending to forthcoming
editions of A Million Little Pieces. "I altered events and details
all the way through the book. [One such embellishment]
involved jail time I served, which in the book is three months,
but which in reality was only several hours," Frey writes in a
defensive three-page "Author's Note" that avoids cut-and-dried
accountability. He insists that his changes were artistically
motivated—serving "what I felt was the greater purpose of the
book"—and studiously avoids the word fabrication. Meanwhile,
Doubleday's "Publisher's Note" may strike some readers as
58/124
evasive at best: "We bear a responsibility for what we publish,
and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional
confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little
Pieces," Doubleday writes, announcing that it also plans to take
out ads "concerning these developments." Precisely what these
ads would contain is unclear.
The original function of a disclaimer—which commonly read,
"Names and identifying details have been changed"—was to
protect the publisher from being sued by people who recognized
themselves in an author's portrait. The disclaimers offered by
Frey and Lerner, however, serve the opposite purpose. These
disclaimers protect the authors from our realization that the
people in their "nonfiction" books are not real people at all.
Rather, these once "real" people have been so altered as to be
inventions—fictions serving the author's story of redemption.
Nothing about these caveats protects identities; nor are they
present merely to suggest that the author's memory is imperfect
or note that elisions have been made for narrative economy.
This is especially true in the case of My Friend Leonard, Frey's
sequel to Pieces, which if anything is filled with fabrications
even more extreme than those in his first book. My Friend
Leonard was originally published with a disclaimer, which,
printed in small type on the copyright page, reads in its entirety:
Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed.
Some sequences and details of events have been changed. To see
just how inadequate this is, consider the memoir's opening lines:
"On my first day in jail, a three hundred pound man named
Porterhouse hit me in the back of the head with a metal tray. I
was standing in line and I didn't see it coming. I went down.
When I got up I started throwing punches. … I have been here
eighty-seven days. I live in Men's Module B, which is for violent
and felonious offenders. … My cell is seven feet wide and ten
feet long." Frey spent only three hours in jail. While you could
call this description a "change," it's better to call it exactly what
it is: a flight of fancy. As Tom Scocca pointed out in the New
York Observer, a disclaimer that truly captured the liberties
taken here would reach epically absurd proportions within the
first paragraph. But Riverhead has done nothing to emend its
presentation of the book. Its catalog copy chirpily links to an old
CNN article headlined "The angel from the underworld," which
describes Frey as a "fearless" writer reluctant to "whitewash" his
life. Indeed. He prefers to black-wash it.
Impostors have always stalked publishing, and the embellished
recovery memoir is merely the latest specter to haunt the
industry—trading, partly, on readers' willingness to turn a halfblind eye if they feel that the fabrications smack of emotional
truth. Given this, what should a publisher do, if anything? One
problem is that book publishers have no obvious public venue
for holding writers accountable. Magazines and newspapers
issue corrections, and readers find those corrections in the same
medium in which they read the stories—usually not long
afterward. Books don't have corrections pages, and new editions
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
are not issued with the frequency that makes newspaper-type
corrections possible. Many editors think it's not economically
feasible to fact-check every book; intellectually, it may not be
feasible either, given the degree of expertise brought to certain
subjects. The publishers' predicament is a real one.
So, what do editors think might be the best way to deal with this
problem? "You can destroy the books and reprint, but that is
prohibitively expensive," said Jonathan Karp, the publisher and
editor-in-chief of Warner Twelve, a new publishing initiative.
"Basically, the genie's out of the bottle," he continued. "Most
publishers now have online catalogs—so, I guess technically on
each book you could refer people to the catalog page for
additions and corrections. I don't know if anyone's thought of
that." Elisabeth Sifton, senior vice president at Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, said, "There aren't official procedures, but the
supposition is that editors need to be smart and well-trained
enough to spot this stuff. The editors are supposed to do some
work here—not just have lunch and sign up the book. They are
supposed to get to know the author, know the text, roll up their
sleeves, and work to learn what the real truth is. And then they
should give the copyeditors guidelines for further checking."
About issuing disclaimers in cases like these, Sifton said, "It's
purposeless, except to save face."
Interestingly, many of the editors I spoke to—several of whom
spoke under the condition of anonymity—felt that they would
never have let such a hoax slip through. And yet according to
Kirkpatrick, Gerald Howard, Lerner's editor, had carefully tried
to vet Lerner, building up a relationship based on trust and
scrutinizing the text Lerner sent every week; they spoke
regularly by phone. Even so, Howard apparently never requested
to see Lerner's court documents or asked his parole officer for
the details of the crime—or, if he did, he apparently decided the
disparities were not worth itemizing. Perhaps a too-personal
relationship makes it harder to apply professional rigor, which
may have been the trouble Sean McDonald, Frey's editor, ran
into; reportedly, in the course of editing, the two struck up a
friendship.
Obviously, in the post-Frey era, editors will show more due
diligence. In the meantime, mushy disclaimers don't go far
enough in outlining just how false the information in books like
these really is. A purist might argue that publishers ought to
destroy copies of a book that's full of manipulative fabrications.
But—setting aside the question of expense—pulping a book
that's still in demand may smack of censorship. Instead,
publishers invested in accountability might consider pulling
books from stores and limiting their availability to mail-order
sites—or, since many books are ordered at Amazon.com and
bn.com, announcing there that the product is not as it was
advertised. Whatever the case, publishing houses should ensure
that their own disclaimers are formulated in clear language,
itemizing the author's liberties and making it evident that they
are serious about packaging work accurately. The paperback
59/124
version of You Got Nothing Coming includes an author's note
that promises to do just this. Instead, just like Frey's note,
Lerner's trumpets the "emotional truth" of his story. It indicts his
critics as scolds who didn't get the "literary" motivations for
Lerner's alterations: In making the Monster physically huge,
Lerner was letting us know that this guy seemed huge to him.
(Uh, thanks. That changes everything.) And then he offers a
squirrelly apology—one that Frey echoes closely. Out of
personal weakness, he confesses, he tried "to present myself as a
far braver, stronger, and more heroic person than I really was—
or am." (Compare this with Frey's line.) Recently, a
spokesperson for Riverhead suggested that changes might be
made to future editions of My Friend Leonard. Let's hope they
include a new disclaimer that's a little less self-serving than
Lerner's.
Part of the predicament editors face, of course, is the continuing
appetite for this type of overblown story. Sales for Frey's books
may have dropped since the Smoking Gun allegations were
made public, but it's not as though the marketplace has turned its
back on Frey. Lerner's book is apparently being made into a
Hollywood movie starring Liam Neeson. No one's fooled that all
the confessional lore that claims big audiences and spots on
Oprah is exactly true. But because of labels like "memoir" and
"nonfiction," we have to pretend the spectacle is based in reality.
So, perhaps instead of rigorous policing, we need a new name
for this hybrid category. We're talking about stories inspired by
gritty real life—stories that claim to be outrageously "authentic,"
like the best reality TV, while also playing up their own tabloid
qualities. Maybe Doubleday didn't need an author's note; it
needed Barnes & Noble to set up a new section in the bookstore.
Coming soon to an outlet near you: "Reality fiction."
sidebar
Return to article
Not all fabrications seem transgressive to me, but that's another
story. Both Frey and Lerner, it seems to me, have clearly
violated the trust and sympathy of their readers.
sidebar
Return to article
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Frey writes, "I made other alterations in my portrayal of myself,
most of which portrayed me in ways that made me tougher and
more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am."
recycled
Favre From Heaven
Why journalists deify the Green Bay Packers quarterback.
By Robert Weintraub
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 11:02 AM ET
On Tuesday morning, Foxsports.com reported that legendary
Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre is set to retire from
football. In the coming days, scores of writers will no doubt
celebrate Favre's on-field heroics and his off-the-field life. Back
in 2005, Robert Weintraub explained why the quarterback is the
most praised athlete of his generation. The piece is reprinted
below.
Brett Favre isn't just a future NFL Hall of Famer. The Green Bay
Packers quarterback is also a regular dude. Just ask anybody
who writes about Favre or talks about him on television. The
Packers play Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs late on
Sunday afternoon, a time slot that promises plenty of shots of
Favre heroically framed in the rural Wisconsin gloaming while
worshipful announcers compose loving odes to his talents as a
player, husband, father, and man. It's enough to make you want
to root for Randy Moss.
As the disconnect between multimillionaire athletes and ticketbuying fans widens, few players have retained the "jes' folks"
status of the Packers star QB. Only a few football players—
almost all of them white quarterbacks, from Bobby Layne to
Kenny Stabler to Terry Bradshaw—are granted special friend
and neighbor status. These are the guys whom you could just as
easily envision working at the mill and chopping wood on the
front stoop as hurling touchdown passes on Monday Night
Football.
Because he's just a regular dude, Favre is one of us even when
he screws up. Favre received almost no criticism last January
when his boneheaded overtime heave cost the Packers last year's
divisional playoff against Philadelphia. In this year's rematch,
the Eagles demolished the Pack by 30 points, in no small part
due to Favre's poor play. After the game, ESPN.com's Michael
Smith wrote that the "impossible happened Sunday. My opinion
of Favre grew." What towering feat did Favre accomplish? He
showed his disdain for personal statistics by pulling himself out
of the game when the Pack were losing 47-3 even though his 36game touchdown streak was at stake. Keep in mind, this is the
60/124
same guy who went into the fetal position to allow Michael
Strahan to break the single-season sack record.
Sports Illustrated's Peter King is probably the quarterback's most
eager lap dog and the writer most responsible for celebrating
Favre's rural lifestyle. "On the morning he had to leave his
beloved home and 465 acres in Hattiesburg, Miss., to report to
training camp, he began to think this might be his last camp,"
King wrote in January 2003. "A private plane stood by at a
nearby airstrip for the two-and-half-hour flight to Green Bay. …
And there he was, sweating a stream while edging a mile of his
property where it meets the road, refusing to leave till he
finished the job." In short, Favre is the guy next door—I bet that
private jet is up on blocks in his front yard.
To King's credit, he's conscious of his reputation as Favre's
Boswell. "Oh no! King on Favre again!" he wrote in the same
article. "King's all over this guy! Please, just one column without
mentioning Favre's name! And we beg you: Don't tell us what
entree you had with him! Sickening!" (The italics are not mine.)
That self-awareness didn't stop King from contributing a chapter
to Favre, the just-released memoir that No. 4 co-wrote with his
mother, Bonita. As Favre's tome shot to the top of the bestseller
lists, Terrell Owens' autobiography, Catch This!, failed to find
an audience.
Favre and Owens make for an intriguing contrast. If you've
watched even a single Green Bay game in the last few seasons,
you've heard the misfortune that has befallen the quarterback
recently: the death of his father, the death of his brother-in-law,
his wife's cancer diagnosis. This year's Monday Night Football
opener featured a halftime retrospective on Favre's relationship
with his father, complete with home movies showing a moptopped Brett in shoulder pads and Irvin Favre looking on
approvingly from his easy chair. Another Monday night game
earlier this year that unfortunately coincided with his wife's
battle with cancer occasioned a sit-down with ESPN's Suzy
Kolber that included such hard-hitting queries as "Where would
you be without her?" and "How would you compare your
toughness to your wife Deanna's toughness?"
While Favre is lionized for playing through tragedy, Terrell
Owens' success has never been given the same kind of context.
As Catch This! reveals, the fact that T.O. made it to the NFL is a
miracle. Owens, who grew up destitute and fatherless in
backwater Alabama, wasn't allowed to leave his front yard as a
child for fear of getting whipped. Favre grew up in small town
bliss surrounded by his loving family. Not to demean the loss of
loved ones, but who has overcome more here? Why is every
hurdle Favre has jumped over presented as the Pillars of
Hercules, while a guy like Owens is dismissed as a loudmouth?
No one doubts Favre's Hall of Fame credentials—three MVP
awards, a Super Bowl ring, 200-plus consecutive starts, and an
ability to laser the ball between defenders even at age 35. On the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
other hand, it's fairly obvious that Favre has been propped up
these past few years by his All-Pro running back, Ahman Green.
Here's a guy who plays hurt and plays well, hails from a red
state, and is by all accounts a solid citizen who runs youth
football camps in his hometown. Yet Ahman gets props only for
his yards—I have no clue what tragedies he's had to overcome. I
guess he's just not a regular dude.
recycled
Calling the President at 3 A.M.
Who wakes up the chief executive in the middle of the night?
By Daniel Engber
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 2:15 PM ET
A recent campaign ad for Hillary Clinton poses the following
question: "It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But
there's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing. Something's
happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that
call." (John Dickerson deconstructs the controversial spot here.)
In a 2005 "Explainer," Daniel Engber looked into who rouses
the commander in chief and which circumstances might warrant
a pre-dawn awakening.
News of the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd reached the
White House at 2:30 Monday morning. According to spokesman
Scott McClellan, the president wasn't informed until he showed
up for work at 7 a.m. When something happens in the middle of
the night, who decides whether the president should get out of
bed?
It varies from president to president, but the task usually falls to
the national security adviser or the chief of staff. In the White
House, a small team of "watch officers"—drawn from the CIA,
the military, and the State Department—keeps an eye on
incoming news and intelligence reports 24 hours a day. If
something important comes up during the graveyard shift, the
watch officer in charge gets in contact with the national security
adviser or chief of staff, either via their deputies or a with a
direct phone call. The watch officers typically have standing
instructions on what sort of news merits a wake-up; President
Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, for example, has said he
wants to be awakened for any overseas incident in which
Americans are killed.
This procedure has been in place only since 1961, when John F.
Kennedy ordered the construction of a permanent monitoring
station on the site of what was once the West Wing bowling
alley. (Before 1961, 24-hour war rooms were constructed and
dismantled as needed.) The new facility became known as the
"situation room."
61/124
It's not that unusual for a president to be awakened with news
from the situation room. President Bush was alerted when a U.S.
spy plane made an emergency landing in China in 2001 and for a
deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2002, among many
similar events.
A daily video from Slate V.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 1:17 PM ET
slate v
But history remembers a snoozing president more than an alert
one. When Henry Kissinger learned of a menacing letter from
the Soviet premier in 1973, the White House chief of staff
advised him not to wake up the president. (Former aides have
said that Nixon, who was distraught over his domestic scandals,
had drunk himself into a stupor by 10 the night before.)
Damned Spot: "3 A.M. Phone Call"
A daily video from Slate V.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 12:34 PM ET
slate v
Ronald Reagan, who famously slept during Cabinet meetings,
also snoozed through two overseas military encounters. In 1981,
his counselor Edwin Meese called a 3 a.m. staff meeting after
learning that U.S. fighter jets had shot down a pair of Libyan
planes earlier that night. They decided against calling Reagan in
his Los Angeles hotel room. And in 1985, Reagan's National
Security Adviser Robert McFarlane chose not to wake him when
an American soldier was shot and killed in East Germany.
(Reagan's reputation for snoozing even invited a protest: In
1983, steel and auto workers marched on the White House at 4
a.m. to "wake up the president" to the effects of his economic
policy. Reagan said he slept through that, too.)
When George H. W. Bush took office, he announced that he'd be
a "wake me, shake me" president, ready to spring into action in
the middle of the night. His bedtime during the first Gulf War
was 10:30, but National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft
would rouse him with important news.
Bill Clinton received wake-up calls from Deputy National
Security Adviser James Steinberg when necessary, but he slept
through the racket when a gunman fired half a dozen shots at the
White House one night in December of 1994. He also slumbered
through congratulatory phone calls from foreign leaders after he
won the election in 1992.
Explainer thanks Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.
slate v
XX Factor: Hillary's Back!
A daily video from Slate V.
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 11:29 AM ET
slate v
Hawking a Bogus Memoir
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Dear Prudence: Touchy-Feely Father-InLaw
A daily video from Slate V.
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 10:54 AM ET
television
The Deep Thoughts of Keith Olbermann
And other election coverage highlights.
By Troy Patterson
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 4:10 PM ET
Last night, Keith Olbermann kicked off MSNBC's electionreturns coverage by unpacking a trunkload of figurative
language suited to match the nasty weather in Ohio. He riffed on
flood tides and sandbags and bridges. He self-consciously
ventured that the storm constituted a form of divine gift, aid to
"political reporters, desperate and weary, already out of
analogies and imagery, and it's only March." And then, as is the
habit of commentators on that most pop-savvy and merrily
allusive of news networks, he plunged deeper into reference,
speaking of "M.C. Escher-like perceptions," Groundhog Day,
and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, further attempting "a Cape
Canaveral kind of analogy" and some Jiffy Lube sort of imagery,
and nodding to the Oregon Treaty of 1846 in a way that risked a
neck sprain. It added up to a vision of anchoring as a free-form
Dennis Miller routine.
As such, Olbermann gave what the evening required. The
challenge of long TV nights like Tuesday—periods when
information drips forth at a leisurely pace and the tensions are
slow to resolve—is finding ways to fill time that are not entirely
artless. We all know how this goes. The campaign managers
buzz by to beam confidence and say nothing. The pundits roll up
to the desk to say whatever it is they've been saying for a
fortnight. Some reporters risk dizziness by evaluating every
revolution of campaign spin, while others, old-fashionedlike,
breathe news of confetti. With nothing like clarity or insight in
the offing, the forecast calls for shtick.
62/124
The best shtick going on CNN this election season is its wallsized touch-screen interactive map of these United States. Lou
Dobbs last night called it a "magic board," about which claim
Wolf Blitzer was politely skeptical: "I don't know if it's magic,
but it's very, very sophisticated." Let's split the difference and
call it nifty. At the board, chief national correspondent John
King would call up county-level results in Texas or project what
advantage Hillary Clinton could gain in delegates by winning
some caucus by such-and-such a margin. The board is an
impressive tool, and the only catch is that CNN mostly uses it to
demonstrate exactly how impressive the board is.
Fox News, for its part, refused to traffic in such niftiness. They
gave us only proof that Karl Rove is settling into his analyst's
job with plump aplomb, his jolliness set off by the near-uniform
dourness of his new colleagues. Fred Barnes did manage a koan
about the nature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, site of
TV's next Superabundant Tuesday: "It's more like Ohio than
Ohio is." Wouldn't you love to see that sentence on a license
plate?
In time, the evening's winners materialized at rallies. John
McCain was in Dallas. His wife had a vibrant new hairdo. His
delivery was awful. I'm not certain whether I've ever seen
McCain read from a prompter before, but I'm positive I don't
want to see it again, such was the unnerving effect of his middledistance squint. His confetti was red, blue, and sparse.
Hillary Clinton won the evening's confetti war in a landslide. Up
in Columbus, Ohio, the paper fell in a thick and multihued
blizzard, dazzling the camera and slashing an exclamation point
on one of her better speeches of the campaign season. Sen.
Clinton, always most appealing in victory, was warm and loose.
She was taking the stage three days after gamely playing along
with Saturday Night Live's fond teasing and one day after
chipperly submitting to an awkward conversation with Jon
Stewart (who is never less interesting than when striving to be
serious), and she carried some of that showbiz ease up to the
podium. With cuddly Mike Huckabee bowing out of the
Republican race, Clinton looks poised to take the lead in the
comedy-show primary—a contest that, despite awarding no
delegates, offers imagery not to be sneered at.
ongoing conversation about the hit HBO series The Wire. An
unedited transcript of the chat follows.
David Plotz: Hi Wireheads,
I got some WMD! WMD!
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: Hi, Jeff here. I understand Plotz is selling
WMD. My favorite all-time brand-name was Greenhouse Gas,
from early this season. "Greenhouse gas is hot!" someone yelled
from a corner. Anyway, nice to be here. A lot of good questions,
I see. Plotz will take the hard ones.
_______________________
Columbia, Mo. (grew up reading Kansas City Star, by the
way): This season of The Wire has introduced us to a Baltimore
Sun newsroom that borders on racist, at least from the
management perspective. The paper willingly chooses to focus
on a serial killer of white men, while barely mentioning serial
killers of the black community (Marlo, Snoop, Omar, etc.). The
paper's management constantly favors the young white reporter
over the experienced black city editor (unless he has another
white editor as backup). My question is: Is this type of
institutionalized racism common in American newsrooms today?
David Plotz: I've never worked for a daily newspaper, so I can't
claim to be an expert. I don't think that newspapers are
institutionally racist in any systematic way. I think they favor the
spectacular and new over the routine, and the drumbeat of drug
violence in Baltimore or DC is routine, while a fetishistic serial
killer isn't. That said, newspapers are always more interested,
and more plugged into, the communities where their own
reporters live, so the Washington Post covers Cleveland Park
better than Petworth.
_______________________
Lynhaven Hood: RIP Omar Little. I have really enjoyed your
comments in Slate. I read them religiously, almost as religiously
as I watch The Wire itself! My biggest problem is, how am I
going to go on without The Wire? How will we all survive?
Further to those questions, are you aware of any upcoming
related projects, or other work by David Simon?
the chat room
Buzzing Over The Wire
Jeffrey Goldberg and David Plotz take readers' questions about HBO's hit
urban drama.
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 4:59 PM ET
Slate deputy editor David Plotz and Atlantic national
correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg were online at
Washingtonpost.com on March 6 to bring readers into their
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Jeffrey Goldberg: The Wire is your religion? You're probably
better off joining a religion that won't have such an abbreviated
last season. You know how I survived the end of The Sopranos?
I started watching Season 1. And that's what I suggest here. The
first season of The Wire is fantastic. The second you could
probably skip.
_______________________
63/124
Laurel, Md.: My favorite two product shout outs of all time:
When Carcetti was running for mayor, "got that election day
special two for one!" During the holidays, "got that mistletoe!"
David Plotz: Jeff just mentioned a great one, too: Greenhouse
gas
_______________________
Arlington, Va.: Did you all watch the episodes a week early, as
available "On Demand"? The one-minute teaser they used to let
the early watchers know they had to wait another week for the
finale (a montage of Clay Davis and his catch-word) was
inspired.
_______________________
Arlington, Va.: No matter what the fallout, I'm completely
behind Greggs going to Daniels about the "serial killer." She's
the one who had to question and console the families of the
homeless "victims," she's the one who was pulled from a triple
homicide for this investigation, and she has enough sense to
know that a scheme this sloppy was going to get out; far better to
give Daniels a chance to get ahead of it.
I'm expecting some degree of a coverup regardless, but there can
and should be consequences for McNulty and the sadly tarnished
Freamon. Also, a question: Does anyone know if there will be a
D.C. area screening of the finale? I don't have HBO, and while I
have an invitation to "borrow" my aunt's TV, I'd much rather see
it with people who love the show like I do. (Getting to and from
Baltimore on Sunday night is pretty much out of the question.)
David Plotz: Jeff and I have been arguing about just this point,
in the dialogue and in person too. I totally agree with you that
Kima did right, and that her snitching was the moral act. Jeff—
well, Jeff will answer for himself, but he overvalues loyalty. One
great achievement of The Wire is to create in oneself these
fights. Is it LOYAL for Bunk not to rat out Jimmy? Or is his
loyalty just hurting the people of Baltimore?
David Plotz: We generally watch them late in the week, on
preview DVDs that HBO sent us. I haven't watched the finale
yet, though. I missed the Clay Davis montage—drat
_______________________
Carrboro, N.C.: Given the occasional references and homages
to The Godfather, do you see a possible parallel between
Michael in The Wire and Michael Corleone? Both are clean-cut
kids who reluctantly joined the life of crime; both are more
intelligent than the average thug; both express a certain amount
of regret for their actions. In the imaginary next season of The
Wire, I can see Michael taking over the business like Michael
Corleone did in Godfather II. Your thoughts?
Jeffrey Goldberg: That's an interesting question. Also profane.
I mean, there's the Corleones, and then there's everything else.
Maybe because the Godfather stands alone for me I didn't see the
parallels, but now that you point them out, I see your point.
Though it's an inexact comparison, and not only because I don't
recall Michael Corleone expressing much regret about anything,
after he was punched in the nose by Sterling Hayden.
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: I overvalue loyalty? It's a hard thing to do,
overvalue loyalty. Granted, we have some recent, federal-level
experience with this (although Rumsfeld is no longer feeling the
loyalty now) but I tend to think of loyalty as a keystone of
character. And I can't help but have hard feelings about Kima's
actions. I understand the questioner's point—Kima actually had
to sit with those parents. And that does make her actions
excusable. I'm just telling you how I feel, and to paraphrase Slim
Charles (Washington's own!) I'm just writing what I feel.
Namond's After School Special: I've had the feeling for the
entire season that Simon is using the last season to toss some of
the disappeared actors a final paycheck. We've had a homeless
portworker and a couple of heckling portworkers, Cutty had a
couple of scenes, they bring back Randy for a cameo and then
Namond, Bunny and the Deacon. Some of this served to
complete minor plot points ... the grain pier went condo,
Namond is saved while Randy is not ... but mostly it seemed to
be superfluous.
_______________________
David Plotz: I love the way Simon keeps it all connected, and
reminds us that it's all one world. The Nick Sobotka (sp) cameo
was lovely, and Randy's lone scene was one of the most
profound of the season.
Upper Marlboro, Md.: I could have used some WMD after
Sunday's episode, when they dropped that this week's episode
wouldn't be On Demand. I always nod out to The Wire at
midnight On Demand. What's up with the change? Many Wire
heads know what's ahead. Why make people wait now?
David Plotz: For the obvious reason: To build suspense. They
want every Wire fan in the country gluegunned to the couch
Sunday night.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
_______________________
Houston: Season 2's big storyline about the dockworkers always
has felt like a weird outlier in The Wire's narrative. Whereas
other plotlines were woven into The Wire's main story, they
never really have returned to the dockworker story line, other
64/124
than cameo appearances by Nick, Valchek, The Greek and his
henchman, and Beadie in other story lines. Do you think there is
much David Simon and the other writers could have done to
advance that plot past Season 2?
can argue that it is being ignored (especially when you consider
just how few people actually watch it.)
David Plotz: Most Wire fans treat Season 2 with disdain. I
certainly agree that it was the weakest season, but it was
valuable in a key way. It aerated the show. Had the show
remained close focused on the drug-vs-cops theme of seasons 1
and 3, it would have felt like a smaller show. By putting us
outside the world of the corner, it began to give us the whole
sweep of the city (and clue us into Simon's notion that
everything—from the crate on the dock to the body in the
vacant—is connected).
Bada Bing: If Marlo goes to a diner for some onion rings, I'm
turning off the TV.
Jeffrey Goldberg: This is uncharacteristic of me, but I'm going
to agree with David here. The second season was lumpy and
often non-compelling, but it was David Simon's first attempt to
make The Wire something more than what we all originally
thought it was going to be. I happen to think that the fourth
season is the reason we'll remember this show for a long time.
The drug trade, by itself, wouldn't sustain this show.
_______________________
Towson, Md.: I don't get all the Omar worship. People say "he
had a code" and "he never put a gun on a citizen," but come
on—the guy is still a murderer engaging in running gunfights up
and down the street. His character was interesting and wellacted, but as far as the "Omar was the good guy" thing, give me
a break.
David Plotz: True. The Wire is so good at messing with
viewers' minds that it had lots of us rooting for homicidal Omar.
As a fan, I found that a kind of transference took place: I loved
the character so much that I would start to inhabit him, and share
his worldview. This happened most with Omar, but increasingly
with Clay Davis and Snoop.
_______________________
Omar (The Great Beyond):: Why does it take forever (or later)
for Emmy voters to recognize David Simon vehicles? Andre
Braugher only got an award for Homicide on his way out the
door in the last season, and now The Wire is in danger of going
0-for-5? Is it racial? Can't think of any other reason, and I'm a
white guy (Omar handle, notwithstanding). P.S. To that end, the
Emmys should be as venerable as a Blockbuster award.
David Plotz: The Emmy business is ridiculous. On the other
hand, The Wire has suffered from no shortage of public acclaim.
When you consider the amount of ink spilled in worshipful
prose—a lot of it by me and others at Slate—I don't think you
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: I am totally with you. In fact, I was going to
make the very same joke, but you beat me to it.
_______________________
Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands: Skip the second season? No
way, by the end it was awesome. How can you not get worked
up when Sobatka walks to his death?
Jeffrey Goldberg: To each his own, I guess. A bad Wire
episode is still worth watching. Don't get me wrong here.
_______________________
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.: Is it common sentiment that the
Season 5 plot seems very artificial? I can't buy that McNulty or
anyone with half a brain would take such a huge risk for a
reward that wasn't even guaranteed. I'm a huge fan of The Wire,
and generally I am satisfied with this season, but I can't get past
this element of the plot. And I guess I'd say that I'm a little
disappointed in the way Omar went out.
David Plotz: I agree with half your question and disagree with
the other half. The Bitey the Bloodthirsty serial killer fraud was
infuriating, for the reasons you cite (though I think the show has
done a pretty good job unwinding the ridiculous premise in the
past few weeks).
I disagree about Omar. His death was painful, in the sense that I
will miss him, but I thought it was artistically and thematically
brilliant. Having him taken out by psychopathic, tiny Kenard
was a stroke of genius. Check out this great Slate guest post by
one of our readers about Omar's death.
_______________________
Reading, Mass.: Will the secret file on Cedric Daniels past be
finally revealed in the finale? What does it contain?
David Plotz: I'm guessing it won't. It's a McGuffin, I think. I
think it's Simon's nod to All the King's Men: We are all of us,
even the most erect and rectitudinous (not a word) of us, corrupt.
_______________________
65/124
Upper Mayberry, Md.: I feel you on the scene with Randy—it
was truly profound. It showed a good kid who had been
hardened by his circumstance, which was created by the police,
who will in turn will arrest him in the future because his only
likely path is crime.
Jeffrey Goldberg: That was one of the most brilliant, minutelong sequences in the whole show. An entire world was
contained in that one quick scene.
_______________________
Boston: Namond Hater: Please explain why I am so annoyed
that Namond is the one kid who got out. Thanks for the lively
Wire discussions.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Maybe because he's kind of whiny. Which is
what a lot of real kids are.
But my advice to you is to stop being a hata.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Am I wrong for thinking Cheese is the most
annoying Wire character of all time? McNulty is a close
second...
David Plotz: I totally agree. Method Man, who plays Cheese, is
a terrible ham, a way too cartoony version of what he should be.
It also doesn't make sense that Marlo—who's a smart guy—
would trust so much territory to such an untrustworthy, stupid
wretch as Cheese.
_______________________
Essex: Aside from the newsroom hooey, the most unrealistic
scenario this season was Jimmy and Kima's trip to Quantico. The
lead detective on a red-ball serial killing is going to make a 5.5hour round trip to have an agent read a profile to him? I don't
think so. That said, the profile and Jimmy Mac's reaction were
the comic highlight of the season.
Jeffrey Goldberg: I actually think this was quite realistic. I
would recommend you go read Malcolm Gladwell's recent New
Yorker expose on the Quantico profilers. It was quite hysterical.
I agree with you that that look of recognition on Jimmy's face
was priceless, and also proved that Dominic West can, on
occasion, act.
Pierce (Bunk), Anwan Glover (Slim Charles), Chad Coleman
(Dennis "Cutty" Wise) and Robert F. Chew (Prop Joe)—not to
mention all of the kids from Season 4...
David Plotz: Great question. Lots of them have landed TV
gigs—Law Order, and Numb3rs have had a bunch of Wire
people. Idris "Stringer Bell" Elba has done a lot. I'm sure
Dominic West will get work, because he's a good enough actor,
but also great looking. I bet Cedric Daniels, whose name I can't
remember, will get work, as will Marlo and Chris Partlow.
They're all stupendous actors and good looking. I talked to a
Wire producer about the success of some of their nontraditional
actors—Snoop or Anwan—and he was very angry that casting
agents were only narrowly looking at them for thug-like roles.
He thought, rightly, that they should be getting more love.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, David, what show do you think is
appropriate for Snoop? Dancing With the Stars?
Your general point is well-taken, and I admire your bracing
honesty in re: Dominic West's handsomeness. This has been a
hobby-horse of mine—not Dominic West's handsomeness—as
David well knows, that one of the miraculous aspects of The
Wire is its cast of mostly-unknown, mostly-African-American
actors. I suggested early in this season that a clever Shakespeare
company would hire The Wire cast en masse.
David Plotz: And who would Snoop play in your Shakespearean
fantasy? I'd put her down for Lady Macbeth.
_______________________
Arlington, Va.: I am a faithful reader of the TV Club—I have
been for years, and love the analysis of the show and even how
you guys go off on tangents. I have to say—I really was
bummed out when the rumored shooting of Omar was true. For
some reason I loved that character. And the way he went down
(as put in the TV Club because of smoking) still shocked me,
even though I had read the rumor. RIP Omar. I'm on my way to
Puerto Rico to comfort your Papi Chulo!
Jeffrey Goldberg: Tangents? Who goes on tangents?
Omar's killing was deeply emblematic. I mean, Kennard is
Marlo's Marlo, in a way. Omar had a code. Marlo has not much
of a code. Kennard is an 11-year-old, and already completely
dead inside. In retrospect, it is clear to me that having Omar
killed by a child made perfect sense. The Wire is about the
collapse of honor, even perverse honor.
_______________________
_______________________
Reston, Va.: Who among The Wire's large cast do you think will
best use their Wire notoriety as a launchpad for continued
prominent TV and/or film roles? I'd love to see more of Wendell
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Arlington, Va.: I grew up in Baltimore and I can confirm that
every detail is accurate, including Crab Chip and Captain
Chesapeake references. But the reason I love the show is that it
makes you feel bad for how our cities need help, but you are still
66/124
glad you watched. Has any other show convicted the viewer as
much, yet hooked them as well?
Jeffrey Goldberg: Good point. Though I was kind of repulsed
by that show.
David Plotz: "convicted the viewer"—that's a great phrase! I
think there are movies that have done that (The Deer Hunter,
perhaps). But I can't think of any other TV show that so
effectively combines guilt and addiction.
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: That is a great phrase. Nothing comes to
mind on television. But then again, I try to avoid television.
Speaking of which, are there any shows worth watching out
there, now that The Wire is gone?
_______________________
Washington: Some friends and I have been The Wire fans for
years. We were talking the other day about how compelling it is
as a portrait of a city. We were thinking how interesting it would
be to see a similar treatment of "complicated" cities in other
countries like maybe Marseilles, Rio, Shanghai or Lagos. What
great in-depth stories you could do ... I wish it could happen.
There is only one other similar show—"Da Vinci's Inquest,"
about Vancouver.
New York: I think this season has been the weakest with all of
this serial killer nonsense. The show is still great because you
care about the characters and some of the other story lines, but
don't you feel that the serial killer stuff seemed contrived and
unnecessary?
Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, absolutely. I've been a big critic of this;
David is more forgiving, but he's a more forgiving type
generally. That said, I have found myself at times curious about
the disposition of this subplot.
David Plotz: The serial killer stuff was hugely weak. I just
realized what bothered me about the newsroom plot, too, which
is that the characters don't get any real lift outside the room. In
all the other seasons, characters are given nonprofessional lives.
But the reporters aren't. They are only what they do, and that
makes them kinda dull.
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: It's been said—I don't know if this is
confirmed—that David Simon is turning his attention to New
Orleans. Which would be quite something.
The guy is obviously not interested in commercial success, and
more power to him.
Baltimore: The excellent actor who plays Marlo Stanfield next
will be making an appearance on the less-than-excellent Heroes.
I hope his power in that show will be similar to the one he
already has in The Wire—the ability to live off nothing but
lollipops.
_______________________
Worcester, Mass.: Wonder why that was the only possible fate
for Dukie
David Plotz: Isn't it interesting that the Season 4 boys are the
characters fans most worry about? I think their differing fates
were handed down exactly as you'd expect, given Simon's belief
in how things work. Randy, ruined and destroyed because the
system of government that was supposed to help him screwed
him over. Michael, who makes his own fate, independent of any
institutions, and bears a terrible cost because of it. Dukie,
betrayed by the other government institution that was supposed
to help, schools, and left to the street. And Namond, redeemed
not by institutions, which abandoned him, but by an act of
individual love and trust from Bunny Colvin. That's the only
kind of redemption allowed.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Jaime Hector, who plays Marlo, is a great
actor, no doubt. And that lollipop business was perhaps the
coldest thing on the entire show. The security guard who caught
him boosting, you'll recall, ended up in rowhouse.
_______________________
Arlington, Va.: What is your ranking of the seasons? Mine in
order from best to worst (relative term) is fourth, first, fifth,
third, second. I know I am not as high on Season 3 as some
others.
David Plotz: Fourth
Third
First
Fifth
Second
_______________________
Does everyone think 4 is the best? I think they do.
Biloxi, Miss.: One of you mentioned Law & Order as the last
refuge of The Wire actors. You didn't mention that about half of
The Wire's cast first appeared in Oz (Rawls, Daniels, Herc, Carv,
etc.).
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
_______________________
67/124
Philadelphia: Okay, I have to admit this. I have been living in a
cave for the past several years. What is The Wire, and what have
I missed by never having seen this show?
David Plotz: Anwan is an amazing guy—a popular radio DJ
here, and frontman for the seminal go-go group the Backyard
Band. And he has one of the greatest voices in the history of
television.
washingtonpost.com: Clips From and Critics Quotes About The
Wire (HBO)
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: The Wire is an underwater musical starring
Esther Williams.
Washington: Do you agree with the claim that The Wire is the
greatest show in TV history?
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: I'm more of an I Love Lucy sort of guy.
And The Sopranos. I Love Lucy and The Sopranos. Two great
tastes that taste great together.
Washington: I'd bet my next paycheck that Judge Phelan is
Levy's snitch at the courthouse, because it can't be Ronda...
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: How big is your paycheck?
_______________________
Bethesda, Md.: I think you all touched on this in your weekly
Slate discussions, but I seriously hope this is not the last time I
see these wonderful and gifted actors, and not on another
episode of Law & Order either. I want to see Omar, Michael,
Randy, Kim and especially Bunk, who really should have his
own show. One more thing: You guys really never watched the
previews for the next episode? How could you not? Half the fun
is seeing what's gonna happen next!
Jeffrey Goldberg: Discipline. Total, iron discipline.
_______________________
The Western, Md.: Think we'll see Brother Mouzone on
Sunday?
David Plotz: Wouldn't that be nice! I doubt it, though. He was
such a gift from the gods.
I think we wireheads are thinking about the finale like the
Seinfeld finale, as if they are going to bring back all the old
favorite characters for a final cameo and hug. I would like them
to bring back the ghost of Stringer Bell.
_______________________
Washington: I work in Georgetown, and yesterday saw Anwan
Glover (Slim Charles) going into Uno's of all places. I stopped
and said hello, lamenting the end of the show. I think he was a
bit taken aback that this white business kid knew who he was.
It's amazing how some of these characters can go on with their
public lives so anonymously.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Cast members working: I can't believe you gave no love to
Andre Royo, aka Bubbles. I think he's a pretty good actor. A lot
of The Wire cast members are experienced actors, and many
were recast from other HBO vehicles -- particularly The Corner
and Oz. Wendell Pierce has been in Hollywood productions like
Get on the Bus (where he got thrown off of the bus) and Waiting
to Exhale (where he should have been thrown out of bed). And
the Clay Davis's character's signature line originally was done by
the same actor playing a DEA agent in Spike Lee's 25th Hour.
David Plotz: There are Bubbles-lovers and there are Bubbleshaters. I'm sorry to say I fall in the later group. I have always
found his plots a little cheap and emotional manipulative. Except
for his turn as Lear's fool at the end of Hamsterdam, and his
wonderful lashing out at Herc in Season 4, I've never been
drawn to him. But I know that puts me in the minority.
_______________________
Baltimore: I really enjoy your back and forth commentary on
this exceptional show. I know you have been critical of the fakeserial-killer plotline, and it is over the top. However I cannot
help but admire McNulty and Freaman going after the real serial
killer, Marlo Stansfield, when no else seems to care about 22 or
23 bodies left in the vacant houses. As for predictions, (or make
that dear hopes) somehow Dukie is rescued and doesn't morph
into Bubbles the Sequel.
Jeffrey Goldberg: I think it's safe to say that Dukie is not on an
upward trajectory.
I also agree with your sentiment; the plot device is ridiculous,
but it doesn't betray the natures of these characters, Lester
especially. For Lester, it's all about catching the prey.
_______________________
68/124
Marlo and Cheese: Haven't you ever worked at a place where a
smart higher-up noticed an ambitious youngster with little talent
and realized how useful it could be to promote someone they
knew would do whatever they told him to? Especially in a
business where it's pretty easy to throw people away.
Jeffrey Goldberg: I don't wince. Or cringe.
I get angry, however.
To answer your question, yes and no, mostly no. This is what
HBO does—it plays it close to the line, it isn't afraid to offend.
And it's equal opportunity offense.
David Plotz: Right—and maybe if they stretched the plot
forward a few more episodes, we would see Marlo drop Cheese
and replace him with someone more capable (like Slim Charles).
Marlo also has the problem that all homicidal sociopaths have
when they are boss: The only people who want to work for you
are also homicidal sociopaths.
_______________________
_______________________
Anonymous: I still sit in amazement that this show never has
received any accolades or awards. I won't debate the action, but
the writing and story lines alone warrant more respect and
acknowledgement. (I understand the demographic of the show,
but the white actors were not even acknowledged.)
Jeffrey Goldberg: I think you're on to something. The actors
who play Bunk, Clay Davis, and Cedric Daniels in particular
deserve accolades.
_______________________
Re: Casting: Actually many of the stars, including Idris Elba
and Dominic West, are not American at all.
David Plotz: Yeah, Dominic West's accent is always kind of
touch-and-go.
_______________________
Jimmy's Demise: At the beginning of the season, HBO offered
three minor character studies (I forget what buzzword they used
to describe them) as part of the OnDemand products. They were
a young Omar robbing the robber and "robin-hooding" the
victim, a young Prop Joe backstabbing an opponent with a
proposition for his teacher, and McNulty's first day on the
homicide squad. Prop Joe and Omar are gone. I could see
McNulty killing himself in the last episode. So, was Simon
foreshadowing the deaths of three prominent characters?
The courthouse snitch: Has to be Rhonda.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Such a cynic, you.
_______________________
Southeast Washington: Let's not forget the best potential
byproduct of the wire—"Hampsterdam." For all the nonsense, I
think that could work in the U.S.
Jeffrey Goldberg: It didn't work so well on The Wire, though, if
you'll recall. To the show's credit—and it is a show that is
opposed to the Drug War—Hamsterdam wasn't prettified. It was
a nasty place which trapped innocent people in its despair and
perversity.
_______________________
Albany, N.Y.: The two of you have spent a lot of time
questioning the "realism" of the Baltimore Sun plot. Why is
perfect adherence to real life such an important factor in your
enjoyment of the show? Isn't it possible that other institutions
have been portrayed with just as much deviation from real life
and you just did not notice? More importantly, is documentarystyle realism the true goal of a series that is compared to Greek
mythology, or is the verisimilitude just a well-executed artistic
device?
David Plotz: I agree with that beef. I dislike the newspaper
portrayal, but I am willing to grant Simon liberty to play around.
I doubt his police department or drug gang is perfectly accurate
either. The problem with the newspaper is less that it's an
inaccurate portrait of a paper than that the characters are not very
compelling. They are psychologically narrower than the
characters in the others seasons/plots
_______________________
Jeffrey Goldberg: Provocative thought. Part of me wishes that
Jimmy disappeared a long time ago.
_______________________
Chicago: Does the portrayal of Levy the Jewish lawyer make
you wince at all?
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Vancouver, Canada: Am I the only one who thinks McNulty's
deception is going to be covered up? Maybe he takes a fall
inside the police department by being forced to resign (or sent
back to the marine unit/evidence locker), but is Carcetti (or
Rawls for that matter) really going to let the big drug bust go up
in smoke? That would end his chances for Annapolis in a pinch.
69/124
The only wild card is Levy, but Lester appears to be cooking
something up on that end...
Jeffrey Goldberg: You sound like a very clever person.
_______________________
Washington Post: Have you read the blog "Stuff White People
Like"? It fits you two exactly, from knowing what's good for
poor people to not watching TV.
David Plotz: I love that Web site! Multilingual children!
Pretending to like soccer!
_______________________
New York: Why didn't you tell me about The Wire? I just
started watching it two weeks ago and am now finished with
Season 3. I am now Bubbles, begging my neighbor for a Season
4 fix. Will not read the chat for fear of learning. Stupid HBO put
Omar RIP on the Web site, and that was beat.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, that was indeed beat.
_______________________
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Jeffrey, you clearly came into
this TV Club with an axe to grind against David Simon and his
newspaper subplot. Are you normally this unobjective in your
writing, or was it just because this was "only a TV show"?
Regardless, I found it very amateurish, and it certainly doesn't
make me want to read anything else you've written.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Axe to grind? I've called him a genius.
Some axe.
_______________________
David Plotz: Thanks for all the great questions, and have a
wonderful Sunday night!
the green lantern
Clinton, Obama, and McCain
Which candidate has the most green cred?
By Brendan I. Koerner
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 7:43 AM ET
I'll be casting my vote in Ohio's Democratic primary, and I
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
was wondering how the two main candidates compare on
environmental issues. Who's got more green cred, Barack
Obama or Hillary Clinton? And how does John McCain
stack up?
With all the rancorous bloviation that's infected the Democratic
race of late, it's easy to forget that Obama and Clinton are
essentially kinfolk when it comes to policy. Sure, there are
wonky differences between their stances, particularly on health
care. But there are precious few discrepancies between the frontrunners' eco-plans, both of which focus primarily on energy. If
you're looking for reasons to favor one over the other, you'll
need to drill exceedingly deep.
At the top of the agendas for both candidates is a cap-and-trade
system to reduce the nation's carbon emissions. (Click here for
Obama's plan and here for Clinton's.) Cap-and-trade requires
companies to obtain credits that allow them to pollute a certain
amount; initial credits are distributed by the government, which
sets an overall limit on the number in circulation. Anyone can
purchase additional credits from private-sector counterparts that
have some to spare (presumably because they've cleaned up their
practices). Obama and Clinton offer virtually identical cap-andtrade plans: Both propose auctioning off the initial credits and
cutting America's carbon emissions to 80 percent below 1990
levels by 2050. In addition, the two presidential aspirants want
25 percent of the nation's energy to be derived from wind, solar,
and other renewable sources by 2025.
Obama and Clinton also place identical price tags on their
proposals to boost clean energy R&D: $150 billion over 10
years. Obama, however, doesn't really break down where that
money will come from; the aforementioned cap-and-trade
auctions would generate an undetermined portion but certainly
not the entire sum. Clinton, on the other hand, states that $50
billion would come from energy companies, which would be
subject to a "windfall-profits fee" and would lose tax breaks—
proposals that won't sit well with Exxon Mobil and its fellow
energy goliaths.
True to his roots as the junior senator from Illinois, Obama is
slightly more gung-ho about biofuels. (The Land of Lincoln is
also the land of ethanol; the state's corn is used to produce 40
percent of the nation's supply.) He wants to offer an additional
per-gallon subsidy to biofuel refineries that are locally owned,
and he wants all new American vehicles to be flex-fuel by 2012.
Clinton counters by promising to increase domestic biofuel
production to 60 billion gallons by 2030; she doesn't mention the
word subsidies but does promise "loan guarantees" to spur the
development of cellulosic ethanol.
The candidates' enthusiasm for ethanol is politically expedient,
but the jury's still out as to whether it makes environmental
sense. Obama and Clinton are both fans of E85, which may not
be quite the boon (PDF) it's been touted as. Also controversial is
70/124
the two Democrats' support for clean coal technology: Some
greens claim that coal is inherently dirty, and all the liquefaction
advances in the world won't change that. (Obama and Clinton
both dance around the issue of nuclear power, stressing safety
but staying vague as to whether they favor more nuclear plants.
The candidates gave similarly ambiguous answers when asked
about the issue during a 2007 CNN YouTube debate.)
Overall, Clinton's plan is a little better on nitty-gritty details. The
Lantern likes her specific shout-outs to plug-in hybrid vehicles
and light-emitting diodes, as well as her adoption of Al Gore's
idea for a federal agency (dubbed Connie Mae) that will
facilitate the development of green homes. The plan's language
is also more pragmatic than Obama's, with lots of emphasis on
the phrase market-based in order to appeal to laissez-fairers and
a whole section dedicated to explaining how the "green
economy" will reinvigorate American industry.
Obama, on the other hand, seems to regard environmentalism as
more of a moral obligation than an economic opportunity. He's
shorter on specifics, particularly when it comes to financial
breakdowns, but he discusses some pressing big-picture
concepts—for example, the environmental consequences of
urban sprawl, a phenomenon that has been encouraged by
misguided tax incentives. And he gets points for thinking not
just about energy, but also several issues near and dear to greenminded voters: As elucidated in this supplementary fact sheet,
Obama's team hopes to tackle lead poisoning, toxic runoff from
livestock operations, and sustainable solutions to Western
drought.
But critics point out that McCain's cap-and-trade bill eventually
morphed into this, which is much less ambitious than what either
Obama or Clinton is proposing: The retitled Climate
Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 would reduce
American carbon emissions to 30 percent of their 2004 levels by
2050. The revamped act also includes large subsidies for nuclear
power, with much of the money coming from the auction of
pollution credits. (An in-depth, skeptical assessment of McCain's
environmental record is here.)
There's a good chance that McCain is waiting until his
Democratic opponent is determined to release a detailed
environmental plan. Until that happens, though, the Lantern will
give McCain's barebones platform a solid C-minus, while the
two Democrats get shaky Bs for their meticulous plans.
Is there an environmental quandary that's been keeping you up at
night? Send it to ask.the.lantern@gmail.com, and check this
space every Tuesday.
the has-been
Amazing Race
At last, a campaign that deserves to go on forever.
By Bruce Reed
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 12:00 AM ET
Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008
So, to answer your pointed question, who has more green cred?
The Lantern hates to waffle, but it's really a matter of how you
regard your own environmental leanings. Clinton's plan offers
more red meat for stats geeks (whose ranks include your humble
narrator), but Obama's is slightly more visionary. Neither is
perfect, given their knee-jerk affinity for biofuels and clean coal,
but such is the nature of politics.
Comparing the two leading Democrats with the presumptive
Republican is tough, since McCain hasn't released a
comprehensive environmental platform. All we can go by at
present is this page from his Web site, which is full of sweet
platitudes but woefully short on specifics. Given the lack of
crunchiness among his base, McCain generally avoids any
language that might smack of "Save the Whales" do-goodism.
He instead favors variations on the concept of "stewardship," a
catchphrase popular among admirers of Theodore Roosevelt as
well as climate change skeptics.
Based on his record in the Senate, McCain seems mildly green.
He co-sponsored the 2003 Climate Stewardship Act, the first
Senate bill to propose a cap-and-trade system, and he's been very
clear about his personal belief that, yes, human beings are
causing the planet's climate to go haywire.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
All the Way: As death-defying Clinton comebacks
go, the primaries in Ohio and Texas were very
nearly not heart-stopping enough. On Monday,
public polls started predicting a Clinton rebound,
threatening to spoil the key to any wild ride:
surprise. Luckily, the early exit polls on Tuesday
evening showed Obama with narrow leads in both
do-or-die states, giving those of us in Clinton World
who live for such moments a few more hours to
stare into the abyss.
Now that the race is once again up for grabs, much
of the political establishment is dreading the
seven-week slog to the next big primary in
Pennsylvania. Many journalists had wanted to go
home and put off seeing Scranton until The Office
returns on April 10. Some Democrats in
Washington were in a rush to find out the winner
so they could decide who they've been for all
along.
71/124
As a Clintonite, I'm delighted that the show will go
on. But even if I were on the sidelines, my reaction
would have been the same. No matter which team
you're rooting for, you've got to admit: We will
never see another contest like this one, and the
political junkie in all of us hopes it will never end.
It looks like we could get our wish—so we might as
well rejoice and be glad in it. A long, exciting race
for the nomination will be good for the Democratic
Party, good for the eventual nominee, and the ride
of a lifetime for every true political fan.
For the party, the benefits are obvious: By making
this contest go the distance, the voters have done
what party leaders wanted to do all along. This
cycle, the Democratic National Committee was
desperate to avoid the front-loaded calendar that
backfired last time. As David Greenberg points out,
the 2004 race was over by the first week of
March—and promptly handed Republicans a full
eight months to destroy our nominee. This time,
the DNC begged states to back-load the calendar,
even offering bonus delegates for moving primaries
to late spring. Two dozen states flocked to Super
Tuesday anyway.
Happily, voters took matters into their own hands
and gave the spring states more clout than party
leaders ever could have hoped for. Last fall, NPR
ran a whimsical story about the plight of South
Dakota voters, whose June 3 contest is the last
primary (along with Montana) on the calendar.
Now restaurateurs, innkeepers, and vendors from
Pierre to Rapid City look forward to that primary as
Christmas in June.
week's MSNBC debate was the most watched show
on any channel, with nearly 8 million viewers. An
astonishing 4 million people tuned in to watch
MSNBC's post-debate analysis, an experience so
excruciating that it's as if every person in the Bay
Area picked the same night to jump off the Golden
Gate Bridge.
The permanent campaign turns out to be the best
reality show ever invented. Any contest that can
sustain that kind of excitement is like the World
Series of poker: The value of the pot goes up with
each hand, and whoever wins it won't be the least
bit sorry that both sides went all-in.
No matter how it turns out, all of us who love
politics have to pinch ourselves that we're alive to
see a race that future generations will only read
about. Most campaigns, even winning ones, only
seem historic in retrospect. This time, we already
know it's one for the ages; we just don't know
how, when, or whether it's going to end.
Even journalists who dread spending the next
seven weeks on the Pennsylvania Turnpike have to
shake their heads in wonderment. In the lede of
their lead story in Wednesday's Washington Post,
Dan Balz and Jon Cohen referred to "the
remarkable contest" that could stretch on till
summer. They didn't sign on to spend the spring in
Scranton and Sioux Falls. But, like the rest of us,
they wouldn't miss this amazing stretch of history
for anything. ... 11:59 P.M. (link)
Monday, Feb. 25, 2008
But the national party, state parties, and Sioux
Falls cafes aren't the only ones who'll benefit.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the biggest
beneficiaries of a protracted battle for the
nomination are the two contestants themselves.
Primaries are designed to be a warm-up for the
general election, and a few more months of spring
training will only improve their swings for the fall.
Hope Springs Eternal: With this weekend's
victory in Puerto Rico and even more resounding
triumph over the New York Times, John McCain
moved within 200 delegates of mathematically
clinching the Republican nomination. Mike
Huckabee is having a good time playing out the
string, but the rest of us have been forced to get
on with our lives and accept that it's just not the
same without Mitt.
And let's face it: These two candidates know how
to put on a show. Both are raising astonishing
sums of money and attracting swarms of voters to
the polls. Over the past month, their three headto-head debates have drawn the largest audiences
in cable television history. The second half of last
But soft! What light through yonder window
breaks? Out in Salt Lake City, in an interview with
the Deseret Morning News, Josh Romney leaves
open the possibility that his father might get back
in the race:
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
72/124
Josh Romney called speculation
that his father could be back in
the race as either a vice
presidential candidate or even at
the top of the ticket as the GOP's
presidential candidate "possible.
Unlikely, but possible."
energy." He let a Fox newswoman interview him in
the master bedroom of the Mitt Mobile. (He showed
her the air fresheners.) He blogged about the
moose, salmon, and whale he ate while
campaigning in Alaska—but when the feast was
over, he delivered the Super Tuesday state for his
dad.
That's not much of an opening and no doubt more
of one than he intended. But from mountain to
prairie, the groundswell is spreading.
Endorsements are flooding in from conservative
bloggers like this one:
As Jonathan Martin of Politico reported last
summer, Josh was campaigning with his parents at
the Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa,
when the Romneys ran into the Clintons. After Mitt
told the Clintons how many counties Josh had
visited, Hillary said, "You've got this built-in
campaign team with your sons." Mitt replied, to
Ann's apparent dismay, "If we had known, we
would've had more."
Mitt Romney was not my first
choice for a presidential
candidate, but he came third
after Duncan Hunter and Fred
Thompson. … I would love to see
Mitt reenter the race.
Even if re-entry is too much to hope for, Josh hints
that another Romney comeback may be in the
works. He says he has been approached about
running for Congress in Utah's 2nd District.
That, too, may be an unlikely trial balloon. Josh is
just 32, has three young children, and would face a
Democratic incumbent, Rep. Jim Matheson, who is
one of the most popular politicians in the state.
Matheson's father was a governor, too. But unlike
Mitt Romney, Scott Matheson was governor of
Utah.
If Mitt Romney has his eye on the No. 2 spot, Josh
didn't do him any favors. "It's one thing to
campaign for my dad, someone whose principles I
line up with almost entirely," he told the Morning
News. "I can't say the same thing for Sen.
McCain."
Even so, Romney watchers can only take heart that
after a year on the campaign trail, Josh has
bounced back so quickly. "I was not that upset," he
says of his father's defeat. "I didn't cry or
anything."
In his year on the stump, Josh came across as the
most down-to-earth of the Romney boys. He
visited all 99 of Iowa's counties in the campaign
Winnebago, the Mitt Mobile. He joked about his
father's faults, such as "he has way too much
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
We'll never know whether that could have made
the difference. For now, we'll have to settle for the
unlikely but possible hope that Mitt will come back
to take another bow. ... 4:13 P.M. (link)
Monday, Feb. 11, 2008
Face Time: When Ralph Reed showed up at a
Romney fundraiser last May, Mitt thought he was
Gary Bauer – perpetuating the tiresome stereotype
that like some Reeds, all Christian conservatives
look alike. Now, in Mitt's hour of need, Ralph is
returning the favor. According to the Washington
Times, he and 50 other right-wing leaders met with
Romney on Thursday "to discuss the former
Massachusetts governor becoming the face of
conservatism."
Nothing against Romney, who surely would have
been a better president than he let on. But if he
were "the face of conservatism," he'd be planning
his acceptance speech, not interviewing with Ralph
Reed and friends for the next time around.
Conservatives could not have imagined it would
end this way: the movement that produced Ollie
North, Alan Keyes, and ardent armies of true
believers, now mulling over an arranged marriage
of convenience with a Harvard man who converted
for the occasion. George Will must be reaching for
his Yeats: "Was it for this … that all that blood was
shed?"
73/124
For more than a year, Republican presidential
candidates tried to win the Reagan Primary. Their
final tableau came at a debate in the Gipper's
library, with his airplane as a backdrop and his
widow in the front row. It was bad enough to see
them reach back 20 years to find a conservative
president they could believe in, but this might be
worse: Now Romney's competing to claim he's the
biggest conservative loser since Reagan. If McCain
comes up short like Gerald Ford, Mitt wants to
launch a comeback like it's 1976.
Even conservative leaders can't hide their
astonishment over finding themselves in this
position. "If someone had suggested a year ago
and a half ago that we would be welcoming Mitt
Romney as a potential leader of the conservative
movement, no one would have believed it,"
American Conservative Union chairman David
Keene reportedly told the group. "But over the last
year and a half, he has convinced us he is one of
us and walks with us."
Conservative activist Jay Sekulow told the
Washington Times that Romney is a "turnaround
specialist" who can revive conservatism's fortunes.
But presumably, Romney's number-crunching skills
are the last thing the movement needs: there are
no voters left to fire.
To be sure, Mitt was with conservatives when the
music stopped. Right-wing activists who voted in
the CPAC straw poll narrowly supported him over
McCain, 35% to 34%. By comparison, they favored
getting out of the United Nations by 57% to 42%
and opposed a foreign policy based on spreading
democracy by 82% to 15%. Small-government
conservatism trounced social conservatism 59% to
22%, with only 16% for national-security
conservatism.
As voters reminded him more Tuesdays than not,
Mitt Romney is not quite Ronald Reagan. He
doesn't have an issue like the Panama Canal. Far
from taking the race down to the wire, he'll end up
third. While he's a good communicator, many
voters looking for the face of conservatism couldn't
see past what one analyst in the Deseret News
described as the "CEO robot from Jupiter.'"
If anything, Romney was born to be the face of the
Ford wing of the Republican Party – an economic
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
conservative with only a passing interest in the
other two legs of Reagan's conservative stool. Like
Ford, Mitt won the Michigan primary. He won all
the places he calls home, and it's not his fault his
father wasn't governor of more states.
Romney does have one advantage. With a
conservative president nearing historic lows in the
polls and a presumptive nominee more intent on
leading the country, heading the conservative
movement might be like running the 2002
Olympics – a job nobody else wants.
Paul Erickson, the Romney strategist who
organized the conservative powwow, called
McCain's nomination "an existential crisis for the
Republican Party," and held out Mitt as a possible
Messiah: "You could tell everybody at the table
sitting with Romney was asking himself: 'Is he the
one?'"
Romney has demonstrated many strengths over
the years, but impersonating a diehard
conservative and leading a confused movement out
of the wilderness aren't foremost among them. It
might be time for the right to take up another
existential question: If conservatism needs Mitt
Romney and Ralph Reed to make a comeback, is
there enough face left to save? ... 3:37 P.M. (link)
Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008
Romney, We Hardly Knew Ye: When Mitt
Romney launched his campaign last year, he struck
many Republicans as the perfect candidate. He was
a businessman with a Midas touch, an optimist with
a charmed life and family, a governor who had
slain the Democratic dragon in the blue state
Republicans love to hate. In a race against national
heroes like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, he
started out as a dark horse, but to handicappers,
he was a dark horse with great teeth.
When Democrats looked at Romney, we also saw
the perfect candidate—for us to run against. The
best presidential candidates have the ability to
change people's minds. Mitt Romney never got that
far because he never failed to change his own mind
first.
So when Romney gamely suspended his campaign
this afternoon, there was heartfelt sadness on both
74/124
sides of the aisle. Democrats are sorry to lose an
adversary whose ideological marathon vividly
illustrated the vast distance a man must travel to
reach the right wing of the Republican Party.
Romney fans lose a candidate who just three
months ago led the polls in Iowa and New
Hampshire and was the smart pick to win the
nomination.
With a formidable nominee in John McCain, the
GOP won't be sorry. But Romney's farewell at the
Conservative Political Action Committee meeting
shows how far the once-mighty right wing has
fallen. In an introduction laced with barbs in
McCain's direction, Laura Ingraham's description of
Mitt as "a conservative's conservative" said all
there is to say about Romney's campaign and the
state of the conservative movement. If their last,
best hope is a guy who only signed up two years
ago and could hardly convince them he belonged,
the movement is in even worse shape than it
looks.
Had Romney run on his real strength—as an
intelligent, pragmatic, and competent manager—
his road to the nomination might have gone the
way of Rudy Giuliani's. Yet ironically, his eagerness
to preach the conservative gospel brought on his
demise. Romney pandered with conviction. He
even tried to make it a virtue, defending his
conversion on abortion by telling audiences that he
would never apologize for being a latecomer to the
cause of standing up for human life. Conservatives
thanked him for trying but preferred the genuine
article. In Iowa, Romney came in second to a true
believer, and New Hampshire doesn't have enough
diehards to put him over the top.
Romney's best week came in Michigan, when a
sinking economy gave him a chance to talk about
the one subject where his party credentials were in
order. In Michigan, Romney sounded like a 21stcentury version of the business Republicans who
dominated that state in the '50s and '60s—proud,
decent, organization men like Gerald Ford and
George Romney. As he sold his plan to turn the
Michigan economy around, Mitt seemed as
surprised as the voters by how much better he
could be when he genuinely cared about the
subject.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
By then, however, he had been too many things to
too many people for too long. McCain was
authentic, Huckabee was conservative, and
Romney couldn't convince enough voters he was
either one.
Good sport to the end, Romney went down
pandering. His swansong at CPAC touched all the
right's hot buttons. He blamed out-of-wedlock
births on government programs, attacks on
religion, and "tolerance for pornography." He got
his biggest applause for attacking the welfare
state, declaring dependency a culture-killing poison
that is "death to initiative."
Even in defeat, he gave glimpses of the Mitt we'll
miss—the lovably square, Father Knows Best figure
with the impossibly wholesome family and perfect
life. He talked about taking "a weed-whacker to
regulations." He warned that we might soon
become "the France of the 21st century." He
pointed out that he had won nearly as many states
as McCain, but joked awkwardly with the
ultraconservative audience that he lost "because
size does matter."
He didn't say whether we'll have the Romneys to
kick around anymore. But with the family fortune
largely intact and five sons to carry on the torch,
we can keep hope alive. In the Salt Lake City paper
this morning, a leading political scientist predicted
that if Democrats win the White House in 2008,
Romney "would automatically be a frontrunner for
2012."
It's hard to imagine a more perfect outcome. For
now, sadness reigns. As the Five Brothers might
say, somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere
children shout; but there is no joy in Mittville—Guy
Smiley has dropped out. ... 5:42 P.M. (link)
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008
Mittmentum: With John McCain on cruise control
toward the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney
finds himself in a desperate quest to rally true
believers – a role for which his even temper and
uneven record leave him spectacularly unsuited.
Romney knows how to tell the party faithful
everything they want to hear. But it's not easy for
a man who prides himself on his optimism, polish,
and good fortune to stir anger and mutiny in the
75/124
conservative base. Only a pitchfork rebellion can
stop McCain now, and Luddites won't man the
ramparts because they like your PowerPoint.
So far, the Republican base seems neither shaken
nor stirred. McCain has a commanding 2-1 margin
in national polls, and leads Romney most
everywhere except California, where Mitt hopes for
an upset tonight. Professional troublemakers like
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are up in arms,
trying to persuade their followers that McCain is
somehow Hillary by other means. On Monday,
Limbaugh did his best imitation of Romney's stump
speech, dubbing Mitt the only candidate who
stands for all three legs of the conservative stool.
Strange bedfellows indeed: Rush-Romney is like a
hot-blooded android – the first DittoheadConehead pairing in galactic history.
On Saturday, Mitt Romney wandered to the back of
his campaign plane and told the press, "These
droids aren't the droids you're looking for." Oddly
enough, that's exactly the reaction most
Republicans have had to his campaign.
But in the home stretch, Romney has energized
one key part of his base: his own family.
Yesterday, the Romney boys set a campaign record
by putting up six posts on the Five Brothers blog –
matching their high from when they launched last
April. Mitt may be down, but the Five Brothers are
back.
The past month has been grim for the happy-golucky Romney boys. They sometimes went days
between posts. When they did post, it was often
from states they had just campaigned in and lost.
Bright spots were hard to come by. After South
Carolina, Tagg found a "Romney girl" video, set to
the tune of "1985," in which a smiling young
Alabaman named Danielle sang of Mitt as the next
Reagan. One commenter recommended raising $3
million to run the clip as a Super Bowl ad; another
asked Danielle out on behalf of his own five sons. A
few days later, Matt put up a clip of a computerized
prank call to his dad, pretending to be Arnold
Schwarzenegger – prompting a priceless exchange
between robo-candidate and Terminator. Then the
real Arnold spoiled the joke by endorsing the real
McCain.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
In the run-up to Super Tuesday, however, a spring
is back in the Five Brothers' step. On Sunday, Josh
wrote a post about his campaign trip to Alaska.
Richard Nixon may have lost in 1960 because his
pledge to campaign in all 50 states forced him to
spend the last weekend in Alaska. That didn't stop
Josh Romney, who posted a gorgeous photo of
Mount McKinley and a snapshot of some Romney
supporters shivering somewhere outside Fairbanks,
where the high was 13 below. He wrote, "I
sampled all of the Alaskan classics: moose, salmon
and whale. Oh so good." Eating whale would
certainly be red meat for a liberal crowd, but
conservatives loved it too. "Moose is good stuff,"
one fan wrote. Another supporter mentioned
friends who've gone on missions abroad and "talk
about eating dog, horse, cow stomach, bugs."
Rush, take note: McCain was ordering room service
at the Hanoi Hilton while Mitt was keeping the faith
by choking down tripe in Paris.
The rest of the family sounds like it's on the trail of
big game as well. Ben Romney, the least prolific of
the Five Brothers, didn't post from Thanksgiving
through the South Carolina primary. Yesterday, he
posted twice in one day – with a link to Limbaugh
and a helpful guide to tonight's results, noting that
in the past week members of the Romney family
have campaigned in 17 of 21 states up for grabs
on Super Tuesday. Now we can scientifically
measure the Romney effect, by comparing the
results in those 17 states with the four states
(Idaho, Montana, Connecticut, Arizona) no Romney
visited. After Huckabee's victory in West Virginia,
the early score is 1-0 in favor of no Romneys.
Tagg, the team captain, also posted twice, urging
the faithful to "Keep Fighting," and touting Mitt's
evangelical appeal: "The Base Is Beginning to
Rally." Back in June, Tagg joked with readers about
who would win a family farting contest. Now he's
quoting evangelical Christian ministers. The
brothers are so focused on the race, they haven't
even mentioned their beloved Patriots' loss,
although there has been no word from young
Craig, the one they tease as a Tom Brady
lookalike.
Of course, if the Republican race ends tonight, the
inheritance Mitt has told the boys not to count on
will be safe at last. By all accounts, they couldn't
care less. They seem to share Tagg's easy-come-
76/124
easy-go view that no matter what happens, this
will have been the best trip the family has ever
taken, and this time no dogs were harmed along
the way (just moose, salmon, and whale).
Yet we seem to dislike annuities. They barely exist in the United
States. In the United Kingdom, they are compulsory for those
who want tax relief on their pension savings. Still, we buy them
kicking and screaming.
At the moment, the Five Brothers must feel the
same nostalgia to keep going that the rest of us
will feel for their antics when they're gone. Back
when the campaign began, Tagg joked that they
would love their father win or lose, although he
might become something of a national
laughingstock in the meantime. Mitt did his part,
but whatever happens tonight, he can be proud the
firewall he cares most about – his family – has held
up its end of the bargain. ... 6:15 P.M. (link)
Quite why we have such an aversion to annuities is not clear.
True, money spent on an annuity is not available as a lump sum
on a rainy day. Annuities are also expensive: After all, insurers
must fear that only vegan teetotalers will buy them. But the truth
is that our reluctance even to dabble in annuities is almost
certainly irrational. So, what quirk of human nature is standing
in our way, and what might insurers (and governments) do to
nudge us in a more sensible direction?
the undercover economist
Money That Lasts Forever
Why are we so scared of annuities?
By Tim Harford
Saturday, March 1, 2008, at 7:17 AM ET
Here's what I like about insurance: You pay the insurers money
when you do not desperately need it, and then the insurers pay
you money just when you need it most.
Curiously, this is not what other people seem to like about
insurance. Most people do not try to arrange for insurance
payments to arrive when they will need them most. Instead, they
arrange for insurance payments to arrive after bad luck.
If your house has just burned down, "when you need money
most" amounts to the same thing as "after bad luck." But what if
your son has just been accepted by Harvard? That is when the
money would be useful, but we are temperamentally more
inclined to insure against the tragic death of a child. It goes
against the grain to insure against "good news."
Meanwhile, we pay through the nose to insure a cell phone—the
loss of which is bad luck but hardly a life event that suddenly
makes money more valuable.
In contrast, we do not buy insurance against living until the age
of 95—a "good luck" event that goes hand in hand with a huge
need for extra money. Insurance against longevity is easy to
obtain: It's called a "life annuity"—sometimes just an
"annuity"—an investment product that pays you an income as
long as you live. If you die young, you lose money on the deal,
but who cares?
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
One indication comes from new research by four economists,
Jeffrey Brown, Jeffrey Kling, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Marian
Wrobel (PDF). Using an Internet-based survey, they presented
respondents with a series of comparisons between pairs of
fictitious retirees who had made different decisions about
funding their retirement. The survey asked who had made the
better choice. Brown and his colleagues found that whether their
respondents favored those with the annuities depended entirely
on how the question was presented. Annuity purchases look
attractive when described as sources of spending. For instance,
when told that "Mr. Red can spend $650 each month for as long
as he lives in addition to social security. When he dies, there will
be no more payments," respondents preferred Mr. Red's choice
(implicitly, an annuity) to Mr. Gray's savings account, which
was flexible but would run out of money at age 85 if he spent
$650 a month.
But when described as investments, annuities suddenly became
unpopular. Few fancied Mr. Red's decision when told that he had
invested "$100,000 in an account which earns $650 each month
for as long as he lives. He can only withdraw the earnings he
receives, not the invested money. When he dies, the earnings
will stop and his investment will be worth nothing."
The two Mr. Reds, of course, chose exactly the same product
described in a slightly different way. The lesson: Don't focus on
what rate of return an annuity produces. Just think about what
you can spend if you buy one.
today's blogs
Blast in Times Square
By Michael Weiss
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 5:55 PM ET
Bloggers wonder what was behind the explosion near a
recruitment center in Times Square and ask if Al Gore is going
to pick up that ringing red phone.
77/124
Small blast at Times Square: A small bomb exploded outside the
famous Army Recruitment Center in Times Square on Thursday
morning. No one was hurt, the damage was minimal, and all we
really know so far is that a creepy bicyclist in a gray sweatshirt
was seen wandering around the area seconds before the
explosion. That hasn't stopped blogger speculation.
the right are eager to use to shut down any potentially energizing
movement."
Read more about the Times Square bombing.
Progessive Connecticut Bob Adams was staying at a Times
Square hotel. The explosion woke him up: "I knew immediately
it was some kind of explosion. I stayed in bed and listened for
the sirens. After about a minute I only heard a couple, then it
was kind of quiet, so I didn't worry about it and fell back asleep.
If it was 9/11 part II, I'd have heard all hell breaking loose."
Pick up the phone, Al: Charles Hurt at the New York Post has
started a potent little conversation about whether Al Gore is the
man to forestall a Democratic Party meltdown. He's a national
figure with solid popularity, untainted by any government tenure
during the past eight years. Plus, his refusal to endorse any
candidate makes him meta-partisan. As Hurt writes, "The
inconvenient truth is that the red phone is now ringing and Al
Gore hears it. The only question is whether he has the guts to
pick it up."
Allahpundit at Hot Air posts the surveillance tape, and
Confederate Yankee does his own armchair forensics: "From
the choice of target, lack of shrapnel, and low amount of
explosives used, I think it only logical to conclude that the blast
was political in nature, a violent though purposefully less-lethal
bomb, if you can ever call an improvised explosive device 'less
lethal.' For these reasons, I doubt it was the act of Islamic
extremists. This was an act of domestic terrorism."
Marty Peretz at the New Republic's Spine agrees that Gore is the
peacemaker: "Make no mistake, Hillary will take this battle all
the way to the convention; she will destroy the party if that is
what it takes. Al Gore, in the 2000 election dispute, put his
country before himself. Is there a greater study in contrasts?"
Alaskan Grizzly at In God We Trust thunders: "This is an
escalation of the terror and treason being committed against our
troops. We have Code Stink and other various groups constantly
protesting at military recruitment centers and now we have a
loon who went so far as to plant an actual bomb outside a
recruitment center in the middle of Times Square where
thousands of tourists go through all times of the day and night.
Thank God no one was injured." John Hinderaker at Power Line
points a finger: "Given the increasing virulence of attacks on the
military and on military recruiting facilities by antiwar groups
like Code Pink, most notably the repeated confrontations in
Berkeley, one could speculate that a liberal group is the most
likely culprit."
Megan McArdle is more skeptical of the culprit's motives: "The
obvious inference it that it's some dimwit who thinks that if he
acts like the Weathermen, he'll be magically transported back to
the halcyon days of 1969, when the LSD ran like wine and every
student in America lined up to press their righteous crusade. But
the police say it may be linked to two bombings of the British
and Mexican consulates, which makes it sound more like a
random lunatic who likes to watch things go bang. Either way,
it's pretty sickening."
Relax. "Antirove" at Daily Kos has got it all sorted out: "It's
nothng new for the right to CAUSE or INCITE the violence, or
to trigger arranged mob responses, and make sure it all gets
pinned on the Left. And the right seems to be able to get the FBI
and law enforcement to do this for them as well. Anarchy, chaos,
property damage, physical harm, mayhem, murder, militarized
police with massive crowd control equipment, are all 'options'
John Derbyshire at the National Review's Corner doesn't think
guts have anything to do with it: "This guy took in the 'public
service' ethos with his mother's milk. He was practically born on
the White House lawn. In his own mind, he's been elected
President once already. He'll answer the call even if he doesn't
much want to. And he does much want to."
Though Hurt doesn't say it in his column, some are interpreting
it as a call for Gore to become the nominee. PoliBlog ain't
buying it: "[W]hy would the party want to go through this big
fight and then jettison both of the candidates who went through
it only to hand the nomination to someone who did not
campaign? How would that heal the party? Why would the
supporters of the candidate who won the most elected delegates
find solace in having then nomination taken from their candidate
and handed to Gore?" Tennesee blogger Kleinheider is skeptical
for different reasons at Volunteer Voters: "Is there any doubt in
anyone's mind that Al Gore voted for Barack Obama in the
Tennessee Primary this year? If this is true how is he any less
conflicted out than anyone else? Or does he not have to be? Is
his presence so large in the political landscape these days that his
advice will have to be heeded no matter what his biases?"
Don Surber is even more damning of the idea: "If Al Gore is
your answer then you're asking the wrong question."
Read more about Gore to the rescue.
today's blogs
Stalemate
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
78/124
By Bidisha Banerjee
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 3:38 PM ET
Hillary Clinton defeated front-runner Barack Obama in both
Ohio and Texas last night, while John McCain sealed his
nomination as the Republican candidate. Some bloggers toss
around recommendations and recriminations while others pass
the popcorn.
What can history teach us? Dismissing Obama's claim that he
has overwhelmingly more delegates on his side, the Huffington
Post's Stephen Schlesinger references three instructive
Democratic conventions: "A lead in pledged delegates is not
enough. You still have to convince your party that you are the
best nominee. That is what the next stage of this election is all
about." Political Animal Kevin Drum trots out the hyperdramatic 1968 Democratic primary season as proof that
intraparty sparring won't damage the Dems. "Like a lot of
people, I'm not very happy about the direction the Democratic
campaign has taken, but the idea that it's going to wreck the
eventual winner's chances in the fall seems pretty far fetched. …
By keeping Dems in the spotlight, it might even help them."
Suggesting that Hillary rivals her husband for the title of
Comeback Kid, SheKnows' Joel Damos writes, "Never count a
Clinton out."
"If I were Obama, I'd stop arguing it's over and say, 'Okay, let's
keep this discussion going,' recommends Portolio's Matt
Cooper. "The more people see Obama the more they'll probably
like him. So roll with it." Obama fan Andrew Sullivan concurs:
"Obama must not let the Clintons into his head. He has to make
this campaign about his positive ideas again. Their goal is to
destroy his inspiration, to make this election about who you're
most familiar with in a world of nasty Republicans and nasty
Islamists. His goal must be to swamp them, as he has already,
with his talent, his reason, and his optimism."
Looking ahead to Pennsylvania, the next big battle ground,
liberal Matt Yglesias posts a bar graph comparing that state's
demographics to Ohio's. He conjectures: "The good news for
Obama is that given how Clinton-friendly the state and, and the
fact that Clinton can't overtake him in the delegate lead anyway,
if he does manage to beat her here she'll have no excuses left to
stay in the race." But on Pam's Coffee Conversation, Pamela
Lyn, an African-American woman, slams the media for
demographic pigeon-holing and asks, "[H]ow do they explain
that every time that they pronounce that it's time for Hillary to
just fade away, a large group of the American people say 'Hillary
Stay!' " On National Review Online's Corner, Ramesh Ponnoru
adds, "The default option in our culture is skepticism, even
delegitimization. It's cool to believe in Obama now, but it may
become cool to see through him by the fall."
Does Rush Limbaugh deserve credit for Hillary's big wins?
Some conservatives think so. "Now anyone who knows me
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
personally knows I can't stand the evil political machine that is
the Clintons. But this strategic move by Republican voters in
Texas and Ohio has forced a near draw that will have Clinton
and Obama clawing each others eyes out for the next 6 months
and force the Super-Delegates to pick who will be their
candidate and not the will of the people directly," crows Alaskan
Grizzly at In God We Trust. Below the Beltway's Doug
Mataconis demurs: "I'm sure that Rush, being Rush, will take
credit for the win but the numbers just don't add up. … Strategic
voting like this usually never works and more often comes back
to bite you in the end. I think that's what will happen to
Republicans for Hillary." Hot Air's AllahPundit agrees that
Rush wasn't a factor "for the simple reason that a man who
couldn't sway enough conservatives to tip close primaries from
John McCain to Mitt Romney probably isn't capable of getting
them excited about Hillary Clinton." And at Reason's Hit &
Run, David Weigel has another take. He marshals stats
indicating that Limbaugh may indeed have had something to do
with Hillary's victory and writes, "Every joke that's ever been
told about how the right needs the Clintons to survive is true.
Hillary Hatred is the gas, the ethanol, and the rocket fuel of the
staggering GOP."
Pointing out that Clinton's attacks on Obama haven't necessarily
helped her, Daily Kos diarist Draylogan credits the negativity
for John McCain's recent lead over Obama. "There is something
extremely powerful about a candidate from the same party
saying that the other candidate is dishonest and lacks integrity.
It's just something that wouldn't be as powerful coming from the
RNC, and would cause a backlash of negativity from minorities
and Democrats, and even Independents."
Others wonder about the possibility of a Clinton/Obama—or
Obama/Clinton—ticket. "If Clinton's going to ask Obama to be
her VP, or he's going to ask her, why not now, soon? ... In order
to win, Obama and Clinton will have to spend time and money
exposing even more of each other's weaknesses. John McCain
will be happy to use that same ammunition against the eventual
Dem nominee," notes independent Chris Tucker of Muse
Machine. Politico's Mike Allen observes, "Obama might be
reluctant to join, figuring that if Clinton lost, he'd be able to run
for the top job four years later. But he might accept her
invitation at the behest of the party."
Now that McCain has corralled the Republican nomination, the
Washington Note's Steve Clemons speculates about whether
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg will be McCain's VP:
"Bloomberg could give McCain some much needed sizzle on the
GOP ticket. Of course, Bloomberg would have to rejoin the
Republican Party." And at Power Line, John Hinderaker points
out the lessons that can be learned from McCain's comeback,
including that "we're reminded that most voters don't pick
candidates by reviewing a checklist of issues. Most voters try to
size up the candidate's character, temperament and stature, and
79/124
are willing to vote for candidates across what we ideologues
would consider a broad philosophical range."
Read more about last night's primaries. Slate's John Dickerson
analyzes the Clinton comeback.
today's blogs
As the Press Turns
By Michael Weiss
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 5:31 PM ET
Bloggers talk about the media's sudden tough questioning of
Barack Obama and lament a pair of fradulent memoirs.
Kevin McCauley at O'Dwyer's PR Blog welcomes Obama to
the club: "Even if he sweeps Texas and Ohio tomorrow, Obama
(and his supporters) need to toughen up because the media long
knives need material to fill the huge time gap before the election
in November. Right-wing knuckleheads making fun of Obama's
middle name, Hussein, will be the least of the campaign's
worries."
The Provocateur, though, is underwhelmed with the media's
late thwacking: "On issue after issue the media has taken a hands
off approach toward challenging the specifics of any of Barack
Obama's proposals. If by the media lover affair being over it
means that Obama will be asked frivilous questions about loose
affiliations with those of questionable integrity, then again we
may as well swear him in now. If, on the other hand, the media
begins to examine his record and ask probing questions about its
specifics then the lover affair will really be over."
As the press turns: "Like a man bitten by his own dog" was how
Dana Milbank described Barack Obama's expression Monday as
he faced the most hostile press corps of his campaign. Coming
soon after Saturday Night Live made a mockery of the media's
fawning treatment of Obama, journalists in San Antonio
hounded Obama with questions about his camp's statements to
Canada about NAFTA; his relationship with indicted Chicago
real-estate developer Tony Rezko, and his supposed loss of the
Jewish vote. Obama was visibly flustered and exited the press
conference early, claiming he was "late" for something.
Read more about the media's ending love affair with Obama.
Conservative Floppin' Aces says smells fear in Obama's
skedaddle: "Another big rookie mistake is to cut short a press
conference and run from the room. It only amplifies the
importance of the questions and Obama's lame response."
Obama supporter Andrew Sullivan writes: "Would have been
better to happen next week—because you never want to be on
the defensive like this before major primaries. But it's a good
thing for the candidate and the country to keep the heat on all of
them. The NAFTA thing, while pretty trivial in the grand
scheme of things, is a perfectly legitimate story, and reveals a
certain naivete on the art of Golsbee."
Ann Bartow at Feminist Law Professors poses the question:
"Should publishers be held to a higher standard of care, to
protect readers from this sort of opportunistic and exploitive
fraud? Or should readers cynically assume all memoirs are
ragingly dishonest?" Joseph Fink at Something Awful didn't
need the latest headlines to wonder about the veracity of Misha's
tale: "I'm sorry, she claimed she did what? With a pack of what?
It really took this long for people to realize that maybe this
young Jewish war orphan did not, in fact, wander war-torn
Europe under the care of wolves?"
John at Christian Political Response credits SNL with the
media sea change: "Saturday Night Live for the past two weeks
has opened their show with skits depicting the media as Barack
Obama lovers, refusing to ask the candidate tough questions and
sucking up to him, while at the same time hammering Hillary
Clinton. It seems the media cares what the media thinks about
itself." At New Republic's Stump, Michael Crowley makes the
same point: "Last week Clinton spokesman Phil Singer was
ridiculed for telling the press corps they should take cues from
Saturday Night Light's skits on pro-Obama media bias. Last
night CNN's Anderson Cooper conducted an entire segment on
based last weekend's debate-parody sketch, in which
correspondents John King and Candy Crowley basically
conceded that Obama has gotten gentle treatment."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Pack of lies: It's been a bad week for memoirists, as two women
who published accounts of incredible lives turned out to have
lied. Misha Defonseca is not a Holocaust survivor raised by
wolves but is actually Monique De Wael, a Belgian Catholic
whose parents were indeed murdered by the Nazis. And
Margaret Jones—er, Seltzer—did not spend her youth running
drugs in South Central but at a private school in the well-off San
Fernando Valley.
Alex at the Museum of Hoaxes rolls his eyes at Defonseca's dud
apologia that "This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but
my reality, my way of surviving." Alex says: "This excuse is
used so often that bookstores might soon have to start separating
books into a third category: fiction, non-fiction, and non-fiction
in a metaphorical sense."
Bruno Waterfield at the Telegraph compares Defonseca to
Holocaust deniers: "The story of Misha Defonseca is a parable
for our times and a warning of the dangers we face when we
suspend our critical faculties to claims made by people who put
on the mantle of victim-hood. The Holocaust, especially when
used as a moral touchstone representing human evil (rather than
a unique historical account of the terrifying consequences of a
dehumanising state policy), seems to attract such testimony.
80/124
Such fabrications are true revisionism and pose more of a danger
to history that the Holocaust deniers such as David Irving."
Oline H. Cogdill at Off the Page is not surprised by Seltzer's
fabrication: "Would the book had been less powerful if she had
turned it in as FICTION instead of nonfiction? I don't think so. Is
having a vivid imagination and coming up with an excellent
story the sign of a good writer? Yes, it is. Is coming up with a
wonderfully written book, passing it off as reality and then being
found out the sign of a good writer? No, it is not. It is the sign of
a fool." Gawker is especially harsh: "The saddest thing for
Seltzer in all this is that she couldn't drag her deception out just a
little bit longer. Her adulatory Times clips had her on track for
bestseller status in the mold of A Million Little Pieces, by fellow
lying memoirist James Frey. If she had been caught a few
months down the road, she would still have been disgraced, but
at least would also have had a shot at profiting off her infamy by
selling a clearly labeled work of fiction for upwards of $1
million, as Frey did."
And Moue Magazine makes the fair point: "If fiction is where
she feels more comfortable as a writer, there is such a thing as
fictional memoir. Dave Eggers has practically made a career out
of that genre and his "What is the What"- told through the eyes
of a Lost Boy of Sudan- is a compelling read. Eggers' worked for
years interviewing Valentino Achak Deng and the result is a
story where Eggers' own voice is only occasionally noticeable."
Read more about memoir fabulism.
today's blogs
Bearish on Russia
By Sonia Smith
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:11 PM ET
Vladimir Putin's anointed successor, 42-year-old Dmitry
Medvedev, secured more than 70 percent of the vote Sunday in
Russia's presidential elections, to the surprise of no one.
Medvedev has said he will name Putin as his prime minister, but
some wonder how the two will share power. Opposition
protesters who said the election was fixed clashed with riot
police in the streets of Moscow Monday.
"To call it an election is insulting to countries that have real
ones," writes Edward Lucas, a former Moscow bureau chief of
the Economist. "Mr Putin has neatly sidestepped the two-term
limit stipulated in the Russian constitution, but achieves his
other objectives, chiefly a speedy return to power in a few
months or years. … As so often in the past eight years, Russia's
rulers will have preserved the letter of legality and political
propriety, while trampling on the spirit."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
At the New Republic's Plank, Michael Idov reports from
Moscow, where he spent Election Day visiting polling sites and
attending a party of the anemic opposition. "Those that think that
the Putin-Medvedev regime (is that what we're calling it now, by
the way?) is quashing a potent opposition movement are
humoring themselves, because the alternative is too nauseating
to consider. We're not exactly sure how to deal with a narrative
of near-unanimous voluntary submission to autocracy. Russia is
as conclusive a repudiation of the idea that every nation hungers
for the democracy-capitalism combo as Iraq (if not as tragic).
More conclusive, in fact: In Iraq, various species of idealism are
still butting heads. In Russia, people give up their liberties out of
well-considered pragmatic self-interest." He also files a video
diary from a dreary Moscow apartment.
At Sean's Russia Blog, Sean asks the West to look deeper at
what drives Russian politics: "Why pretend there is a contest
when there actually isn't one in real political terms? Dima is
Putin's man, so by that simple fact he's also most Russians' man.
So instead of harping again and again on the obvious–Russia is
not the democratic, liberal nation we all pray for–we need
concentrate on why Russians may not love Putin, but they love
Putin's Russia."
Conservative Kim Zigfeld at La Russophobe is all doom and
gloom at the results: "We've said for years now that we'd have
much preferred to see Vladimir Putin remain in power in 2009
than to allow a proxy to take his place, because remaining in
power would signal that he doesn't yet have sufficient control to
make him comfortable with a proxy -- in other words, that he
recognizes vulnerability. But now he has allowed Dmitri
Medvedev, an utterly unqualified sycophant, to assume the
nominal reins of power whilst he remains as prime minister, and
this is a darkest omen for Russia's future, indeed."
At Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness, British blogger
Chekov strikes a more positive note, hoping that Medvedev—
who he points out was 25 when the USSR disintegrated—will be
the first true post-Soviet leader. "Although Russia's path of
sovereign democracy and state-based energy monopolies will
remain true, Medvedev is a leader who will not have the
'siloviki' baggage of his predecessor. Authoritarianism may
remain, but there is every chance that controls on the press may
be relaxed and the primacy of the rule of law will be more
fastidiously asserted. Beyond this there is no great appetite for
extensive reform in Russia and western observers will simply
have to accept that the system of government there enjoys the
support of a large majority."
At Lex Libertas, Owen—who lived in Russia for two years—
looks to recent history to remind readers that Putin may not be
able to hold onto power despite being named prime minister.
"Remember, Putin was picked in '99 because he was a weak,
unknown candidate. There were various factions fighting to see
who would take over from Yeltsin, and in order to sort of make a
81/124
peace agreement Yeltsin selected Putin, who wasn't a part of any
of the factions. … I'll withhold judgment for the time being. The
thing about Russia is that you never know what's going to
happen tomorrow. Given the chaos of the 90's, any smooth
transition of power is progress, even it's one as rigged as this."
Writing at Robert Amsterdam, the blog of the lawyer for jailed
oil tycoon Mikhail Khordorkovsky, contributor James worries
that others will copy Russian "democracy." "Perhaps the worst
part of the complacency with which the world has tolerated the
Russia's election farce is that many other authoritarian nations
will take this as precedent - an understanding that skillful
manipulation of democratic processes is perfectly OK with
international partners. China, for one, seems ideally poised to
copy Russia's brand of sovereign democracy as though it were a
counterfeit Prada handbag."
At the Oil and Glory, Steve LeVine, an ex-Wall Street Journal
correspondent in the former Soviet Union, opines that heavyhanded Russian energy policy won't change under Medvedev,
citing as evidence that Gazprom—the gas behemoth that
Medvedev formerly headed up—on Monday decreased supply to
Ukraine by 35 percent.
Others try to find humor in the darkness. "Closing Russian polls
this Sunday are indicating that Dmitry Medvedev, long preened
to be the next Russian President has won in a landslide victory
over the opposing candidates. Putin, in the meantime, is taking
up the newly coined role of 'Prime Minister', which, shall we
say, is Russian for 'Medvedev is my bitch,' " quips Grant Martin
at travel blog Gadling.
Russia Today, the English language news service run by state
news agency RIA-Novosti, declares Medvedev has a "thumping
mandate."
Read more about the Russian presidential elections. Slate's Anne
Applebaum ponders why Russia bothers with elections.
today's papers
during a tense time for the region after an Israeli military
operation in Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians. The New
York Times leads with a look at how Democratic leaders are
desperately trying to figure out a system that would allow voters
from Michigan and Florida to have a say in the presidential
contest. In such a hotly contested race, the fight over these
delegates is intensifying, and the big question is whether the two
states will hold another vote. It seems both candidates could
agree to a do-over, but the problem is no one wants to pay for it.
The Washington Post leads with the Senate overwhelmingly
voting in favor of a new law that would strengthen the
government's oversight of safety in consumer products. Spurred
into action by last year's recalls of toys that contained hazardous
materials, it would mark the first time Congress passes this type
of legislation in 18 years. Differences with the House version of
the bill still have to be worked out, but the legislation would give
a bigger budget and more power to the Consumer Product Safety
Commission. It could also lead to the creation of a public
database of complaints about potentially dangerous products as
well as an increase in fines for safety violations. USA Today
leads with the Federal Reserve's announcement that American's
percentage of equity in their homes fell below 50 percent for the
first time since 1945. This trend downward is likely to continue
as home prices continue to decrease while mortgage rates
increase.
The gunman who attacked the Jerusalem seminary, which the
WSJ says is "known as the birthplace of religious Zionism," has
not been identified, but there's speculation that he was a young
man from East Jerusalem. Hamas didn't take responsibility for
the attack but praised it, and thousands of Gaza residents took to
the streets to celebrate the killings. The WP and LAT note that a
television station operated by Hezbollah said a previously
unknown group—named for the Hezbollah leader who was
killed last month—claimed responsibility for the attack.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the act. He
had recently agreed to return to the negotiating table, but talks
now seem less likely because, as the NYT points out, the attack
will certainly push Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to
respond somehow, somewhere with force." Hundreds of people
gathered outside the seminary last night, chanting, "Death to
Arabs" and blaming Olmert for the attacks. "Tonight's massacre
… is a defining moment," Olmert's spokesman said.
Play It Again
By Daniel Politi
Friday, March 7, 2008, at 6:15 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide
newsbox lead with, and everyone else fronts, news that a
gunman killed at least eight people, and wounded nine, when he
opened fire at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem yesterday. It was
the first attack inside Jerusalem in four years, and the deadliest
against Israeli civilians in almost two. The attack that apparently
involved a sole gunman, who was killed at the scene, comes
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Everyone agrees that disenfranchising millions of voters from
two battleground states could be a disaster for the Democratic
Party, even if those states did break the rules by scheduling
primaries in January. No one really worried about it when it was
assumed the eventual nominee would simply agree to seat the
delegates. But now it turns out that their delegates could be
crucial in figuring out who wins the nomination. DNC Chairman
Howard Dean said it's up to the states to figure out what to do,
while emphasizing that he won't change the rules in the middle
of the contest so there's no way delegates from the January vote
82/124
will be seated. Dean also insisted states should not be looking to
the national party to fund a primary, while the leaders of the
states said they won't ask taxpayers to foot the bill, which, in
Florida, could be as high as $25 million. The LAT notes that in
Florida some are suggesting a mail-in vote, which would be
much cheaper. Despite all the back-and-forth, the WP says both
campaigns just want the issue to be decided as quickly as
possible so they can start planning.
Dean has been adamant that the Democratic National Committee
needs to keep its money for the general-election campaign. But
the truth may be that it simply doesn't have much money to
spare. In a Page One story, the NYT takes a look at how the DNC
trails the Republican National Committee in the amount of cash
it has in hand. The DNC ended 2007 almost broke while the
RNC has raised far more money in this election cycle and has
$25 million in cash on hand. Democratic officials say money
will start flowing once a nominee is picked, but some are quick
to blame Dean for the predicament, saying that his "50-state
strategy," which involves opening offices in all states, has
proved to be too expensive. Many within the DNC insist the
strategy will pay off in the end, but in the meantime, the RNC
has a clear advantage since it can start spending more money to
campaign for Sen. John McCain.
The WP and LAT front news that Viktor Bout, a Russian
businessman who is thought to be one of the world's largest arms
dealers, was arrested yesterday in Thailand after a sting
operation by U.S. agents. Bout has long been the stuff of legend,
particularly since he seemed to operate with impunity even
though his role in fueling some of the world's deadliest conflicts
was widely known. Much has been written about him over the
years (including a long profile in the NYT Magazine in 2003),
and his life is said to have been the basis for the movie Lord of
War. But DEA authorities managed to get Bout to Thailand for a
supposed arms deal with people he thought represented the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Federal
prosecutors in New York said they plan to seek Bout's
extradition, along with an associate, and charge him with
conspiracy to provide support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Nobody fronts news out of Baghdad, where a bomb in a
crowded shopping district killed at least 68 people, according to
the LAT.
Worried about losing an hour of your life this weekend in the
switch to daylight saving time? In the NYT's op-ed page, Stefan
Klein argues that our constant battle with a lack of time has
much to do with the belief that time is money, but "the quest to
spend time the way we do money is doomed to failure." The
solution? Just relax. "We are not stressed because we have no
time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed."
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
today's papers
No Way Out
By Daniel Politi
Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 6:16 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with a detailed look at how the
"wall" that has long existed between local law enforcement and
intelligence gathering on national security matters is coming
down more quickly than most realize. After Sept. 11, police
agencies began to link up their systems to share more
information than ever before, and these efforts are going to shift
into high gear this month as some local and state agencies will
connect to a new Justice Department system known as N-DEx
(National Data Exchange). USA Today leads with word that U.S.
Postal Service officials approve almost all the requests from law
enforcement to record information that is on the outside of
letters and packages. A Freedom of Information Act request
revealed that more than 97 percent of the requests are approved,
and there have been more than 10,000 of these authorizations
since 1998, a number that doesn't even take into account the mail
that was monitored as part of national security investigations.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street
Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with, and everybody else
fronts, a look at the state of the Democratic presidential race
after Sen. Hillary Clinton's victories this week. No one doubts
that winning three out of the four primaries on Tuesday has
revived Clinton's bid for the White House, but in reality she
wasn't able to cut into Sen. Barack Obama's lead by a significant
margin. The full results from Texas aren't in yet, but the NYT
estimates that Clinton will get a net gain of anywhere from five
to 15 delegates, while the Associated Press thinks the number
will be around 12. Estimates vary, but Clinton still trails Obama
by more than 100 delegates, including superdelegates.
N-DEx aims to become a central repository of information that
will allow "federal law enforcement, counterterrorism and
intelligence analysts to automatically examine the enormous
caches of local and state records for the first time," explains the
WP. Previous efforts to create these types of networks haven't
been very successful, but officials are optimistic that this new
$85 million system developed by Raytheon will be different.
The paper notes that these new systems of information networks
highlight the important role private companies are playing in
national security matters, but doesn't expand much on the issue
or elaborate on why that could be considered troubling. Of
course, many are simply troubled by such extensive informationsharing networks that could easily lead to abuse. Even some
proponents of these systems are worried that if there's a lack of
proper oversight "the new networks pose a threat to basic
American values by giving police too much power over
information."
83/124
The LAT and WSJ highlight, and everyone mentions, Clinton's
victories caused more heartburn among Democratic Party
insiders who are concerned that a long primary fight will cause
irreparable damage to both candidates and hand the presidency
over to Sen. John McCain. As predicted, more attention is being
paid to Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of
their delegates for scheduling early primaries. Yesterday, the
governors of the two states called on the party and the candidates
to come to an agreement so their delegates can be seated at the
convention. But some are concerned about a potential backlash
if there's a feeling Obama lost because the rules were changed,
particularly among black voters who could see it as the party's
way to stop the first viable African-American candidate. "It
would be an absolutely gigantic fight that would spill over not
only to the convention floor, but to the streets of Denver," a
Democratic strategist tells the WSJ.
Making matters more complicated for the Democratic insiders is
that there doesn't seem to be any way for either candidate to
clinch the nomination without the help of superdelegates. The
Clinton campaign is leading an effort to convince superdelegates
that they should stay put and not make any commitments at least
until Pennsylvania votes on April 22. Assuming she wins that
state, Clinton could then try to convince superdelegates to join
her by arguing she is the better nominee for the general election,
even if she trails in the delegate count. In that scenario, the race
would still go on, and now it seems even more Democrats are
suggesting that the best way to avoid potential damage would be
a joint ticket. "To me that's the most logical option, the easiest
one to figure out," Leon Panetta, a Clinton supporter, said.
Clinton opened the door to this discussion yesterday when she
suggested, "that may be where this is headed," but Obama
countered that the talk "is very premature."
Despite all the hand-wringing, not everyone is convinced that a
long Democratic race automatically helps McCain. In the WSJ's
op-ed page, Karl Rove writes that as long as the Democratic
contenders keep fighting each other (and there were hints
yesterday that the battle is about to become even more
aggressive), McCain will have trouble getting media coverage.
The WP's Libby Copeland agrees and says that "such a
fascinating election deserves a little more time and
contemplation." Copeland argues that as long as the Democrats
hog the news coverage, "voters are left with the image of
McCain … receiving the president's endorsement," which may
not be to his advantage considering Bush's low approval ratings.
A new poll out today by the WP that shows McCain would lose
to either of the Democratic contenders—although by a larger
margin when paired against Obama—could give credibility to
this view. The paper doesn't mention it, but the poll was taken
the weekend before Tuesday's primaries, when the media largely
ignored McCain and focused on the Democratic battle.
Clinton's supporters may have been popping bottles of
champagne yesterday, but inside the campaign, it felt "less than
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
victorious," says the WP. Most of the other papers have already
written about the intense infighting that has plagued the Clinton
campaign, but today the WP adds several choice nuggets about
this battle that won't die and points out that as soon as the results
were known yesterday, her advisers quickly let everyone on their
contact lists know that Mark Penn, her chief strategist, should
not be credited for the victories. Many of the campaign's most
senior officials have frequently tried to convince Clinton that she
should fire Penn, but she has stuck by him. During the month of
February, tensions were so high that apparently insults
(including several instances of "[Expletive] you!") were bandied
about. Two other interesting tidbits from the insidery article
about the sources of statements that backfired: It seems Penn
was the one who gave Bill Clinton the line about comparing
Obama's victory in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson, and it was
Bruce Reed (a Slate contributor) who offered up the "change
you can Xerox" line that Clinton used in last month's debate.
Campaign workers may be exhausted from all the campaigning,
but so are the journalists who have to follow them around, notes
the WP's Howard Kurtz. Although the media are often accused
of trying to prolong the horse race, some reporters just want it to
end. "This is a really strange phenomenon in that you're seeing
people who can't wait for it to be over," says Time's Ana Marie
Cox. "There's only so many stories you can write, and we're
running out of them."
today's papers
It Keeps Going and Going
By Daniel Politi
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 6:18 AM ET
Everybody leads with yesterday's primaries, where Sen. Hillary
Clinton won key victories in Ohio and Texas primaries, which
marked another comeback for the former first lady and assured
Democrats that the fight for the nomination will continue. Sen.
Barack Obama won Vermont, and Clinton received more votes
in Rhode Island. The New York Times points out that Clinton
achieved victory in Texas by a small margin, but her earlier,
more decisive, win in Ohio allowed her to "deliver a televised
victory speech in time for the late-night news." By breaking her
opponent's winning streak, Clinton effectively "jolted a
Democratic Party establishment that was beginning to see
Obama as the likely nominee," says the Washington Post. USA
Today mentions that Obama had hoped to "provide a knockout
punch" yesterday, and the Los Angeles Times says Obama
looked "disappointed" last night even as he emphasized that he
continues to lead in delegates. Everybody notes that despite the
momentum that Clinton might gain from the high-profile
victories, she still faces an uphill battle to narrow Obama's lead.
84/124
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain won all four contests
and clinched the Republican nomination. His main rival, Mike
Huckabee, dropped out of the race soon after polls closed and
vowed "to do everything possible to unite our party." In his
victory speech, McCain lumped the two Democratic contenders
and made it clear that he will continue talking about how neither
one is fit to lead the country. "I will leave it to my opponent to
propose returning to the failed, big-government mandates of the
'60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health-care
insurance for some Americans," he said. McCain will travel to
the White House today, where he will officially accept President
Bush's endorsement. The Wall Street Journal's print edition
closed before Clinton's victories were evident, and the paper
emphasizes that McCain now has to raise lots of money and
figure out how to "transform his shoestring primary campaign
into a machine able to win the presidency," particularly since
he's made it clear that he wants to compete in reliably
Democratic states.
Clinton won the primary vote in Texas by a narrow margin, but
all the papers remind readers Obama could still get more
delegates out of the state because of its complicated voting
system that allocates 35 percent of delegates through caucuses
that began after the polls closed. Results from the caucuses aren't
in yet, but Obama was leading before counting stopped for the
night.
Despite the fact that Clinton "will continue to find herself in a
difficult position mathematically," as the NYT puts it, winning in
both Texas and Ohio was exactly what Clinton needed to
effectively challenge calls for her to withdraw from the race.
Before the Texas results were known, Clinton dedicated her
Ohio victory to everyone "who's ever been counted out but
refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled
but stood right back up." So, how did she do it? Mostly by
regaining the blocs of voters that had been an integral part of her
base but lately seemed to be switching to Obama. Her biggest
advantage was with white voters who don't have a college
education, with whom she led by 25 percentage points in Texas
and almost 40 points in Ohio. Surveys showed Hispanics and
women also supported Clinton by wide margins.
Exit polls showed she had a clear advantage among late-deciding
voters, suggesting that her attacks against Obama in the last few
days worked as intended. In a Page One analysis, the LAT says
Clinton "seemed to finally figure out how to make her brand of
'experience' compete with a mantra of 'change.' " And now she
can continue saying that Democrats need a nominee who can
win the big, battleground states. Still, as the NYT points out in its
own analysis, Clinton is "viewed by many party leaders as an
obstacle to the fight ahead." There are concerns that a continued
negative tone in the Democratic campaign could hurt the party's
chances in November. Others (including Slate's Christopher
Beam) argue that Democrats could benefit from a long fight that
will continue to energize voters while helping the eventual
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
candidate figure out how to best fend off attacks from the
Republicans. But the LAT cites an interesting statistic from exit
polls that suggests "negativity will take its toll." In previous
contests, Democrats overwhelmingly said they'd be satisfied
with either candidate, but in Texas and Ohio only four in 10
expressed the same sentiment.
The unusually high number of voters who wanted to express
their opinion in yesterday's primaries led to problems in Ohio
and Texas. Paper ballots ran out in several places in Ohio and
some polls were left open for an additional 90 minutes. In Texas,
there was chaos at several caucus sites that were filled to
capacity, and Clinton's campaign said Obama supporters were
unfairly trying to gain an upper hand in several caucuses.
Up next for the Democrats are the caucuses in Wyoming on
Saturday and the Mississippi primary next Tuesday, two states
where Obama has a big lead. But Pennsylvania, a state that
doesn't vote until April 22, is the big prize, and Clinton is
thought to have an advantage there. As the battle for delegates
continues, there's likely to be a big push from the Clinton camp
to persuade the Democratic Party that delegates from Florida and
Michigan should count.
Although McCain won decisive victories yesterday, voters who
described themselves as "very conservative" supported
Huckabee in large numbers, and at least 40 percent of
Republicans said the senator from Arizona isn't conservative
enough. Regardless, seven in 10 Republicans said they'd be
satisfied with McCain as their nominee. Meanwhile, the NYT
points out inside that Republicans will now focus on who
McCain will choose as his running mate, a particularly important
decision considering that he would be the oldest candidate ever
elected to a first term.
In other news, the NYT fronts, and everyone goes inside with,
the growing tensions in South America resulting from
Colombia's strike against a rebel leader in Ecuador. The LAT
notes Venezuela "made a move that could halt billions of dollars
worth of trade" with Colombia, and Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez characterized Colombia as the "Israel of Latin America."
Meanwhile, Ecuador's president went on a tour of Latin
American countries to seek condemnation for the bombing,
emphasizing that the killing of the FARC leader likely ruined
any chance that more hostages, including former Colombian
presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, would be released.
Colombia fired back, and said it would file charges against
Chávez at the International Criminal Court for assisting the rebel
group with money and other resources. The WSJ highlights the
announcement by Colombia's vice president that the FARC had
been trying to obtain material to build a radioactive dirty bomb.
Despite all the saber-rattling, USAT emphasizes, and everyone
notes, that a full-scale war in Latin America still seems highly
unlikely.
85/124
Even though presidential debates have garnered relatively high
ratings, the TV networks preferred to eschew coverage of the
important primaries during prime-time hours to broadcast shows
like The Biggest Loser and Big Brother. "It's official," writes the
NYT's Alessandra Stanley, "The networks no longer cover news,
they slap it onto the bottom edge of their regular programming
like Post-it notes."
today's papers
Is This the End?
By Daniel Politi
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 6:22 AM ET
The New York Times and Washington Post lead with the last day
of campaigning before the potentially decisive primaries in Ohio
and Texas. Voters in Rhode Island and Vermont also go to the
polls today but the main focus tonight will be on the big states
that could seal the fate of Sen. Hillary Clinton. The two
Democratic candidates engaged in an intense battle of words
yesterday over trade and national security while Clinton vowed
to stay in the race. "I'm just getting warmed up," she said, even
as Sen. Barack Obama's aides emphasized she won't be able to
catch up in the delegate count. As the Los Angeles Times
emphasizes, there now seems to be general agreement that the
only way Clinton will conceivably drop out is if she loses both
Texas and Ohio, a prospect that is seen as highly unlikely.
The Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox leads with
Israel's withdrawal of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip. The
move "lays bare" the difficult situation Israel faces as it tries to
both weaken Hamas and continue peace talks with Palestinians
in the West Bank. USA Today leads with an interesting poll that
shows one-third of Americans ask their doctors about a
prescription drug they saw advertised. Of those who asked, 44
percent ended up with the drug they had inquired about, while
82 percent walked away with some sort of prescription. "Our
survey shows why the drug companies run all these ads: They
work," the president of the Kaiser Foundation said. The LAT
leads with the price of oil, which briefly hit an inflation-adjusted
record when it reached $103.95 a barrel yesterday. The previous
record was set in April 1980, when, adjusted for inflation, oil
reached $103.76 a barrel. The falling dollar is seen as a key
culprit, and many expect oil prices to keep increasing as
investors continue to seek protection in commodities.
Motivated by a general feeling that her attacks against Obama
are finally beginning to stick, Clinton continued on the offensive
yesterday. The NYT is alone in giving front-page play to a new
ad where Obama is criticized for not holding hearings as
chairman of a Senate subcommittee that is in charge of
overseeing NATO troops in Afghanistan (watch the ad here).
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
NAFTA was also on the menu yesterday as Clinton's campaign
pushed a newly released memo about a meeting one of Obama's
senior advisers had with Canadian Consulate officials. The
memo said Obama's talk on NAFTA should be seen "as more
about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy
plans." Obama had previously said that reports of a meeting
between his adviser and Canadian officials were false, and
yesterday the adviser said his words had been misinterpreted.
The senator from Illinois said this was all part of Clinton's
"kitchen sink strategy … three, four things a day. This is one of
them. It doesn't, I think, change the facts." (Confused about this
back-and-forth about an obscure memo? USAT has a good
rundown that quickly explains how the story has progressed over
the past few days.)
There seemed to be no shortage of material for Clinton's camp,
which was also fortunate that Antoin Rezko went on trial this
week, which forced Obama to answer questions about his
relationship with the infamous Chicago developer. Obama
insisted he has already made clear that carrying out a real-estate
deal with Rezko was "a boneheaded move."
If there's one thing that stands out from today's campaign stories,
it is that contrary to the general gloom-and-doom attitude that
had been evident in the papers over the past few days, the overall
theme today seems to be that Clinton could surprise and score
another comeback. It could be an eagerness to continue the horse
race, but as Dana Milbank (who last week openly mocked the
Clinton campaign and said her aides "have resorted to a mixture
of surreal happy talk and angry accusation") points out, the press
went on the offensive yesterday, which appeared to catch Obama
off guard. "The lumbering beast that is the press corps finally
roused itself from its slumber Monday and greeted Barack
Obama with a menacing growl," writes Milbank.
Still, the papers recognize that even if Clinton wins a majority of
the 370 pledged delegates that are at stake today (and remember
that, particularly in Texas, she could win the popular vote but
lose in the delegate race), it will be difficult for her to cut into
Obama's lead. In a particularly insightful edition of his nowfamous "8 Questions That Today's Primaries Could Answer," the
Post's Dan Balz is clear: "There is virtually no realistic way for
Clinton to emerge from the primary-caucus season with more
pledged delegates than Obama." But any outcome besides a clear
loss will probably keep Clinton in the race, particularly since
she's seen as having an advantage in Pennsylvania, where voters
will go to the polls on April 22.
Despite all the pundit talk about Clinton dropping out, she would
have a good basis of support from the voters to stay in the race.
A new WP poll reveals that a mere 29 percent of Democratic
voters think Clinton should leave the race if she wins one of the
two big states at stake, although 51 percent think she should call
it quits if she loses both Texas and Ohio.
86/124
It might be easy to forget thanks to the attention-hogging
Democrats, but Republicans will also vote today, and some think
it'll finally mark the end of Mike Huckabee's candidacy. If
McCain wins by a wide margin in Texas and Ohio, it might give
him enough delegates to officially claim the nomination, which
the NYT thinks could be possible when superdelegates are
factored into the math. Even if the numbers don't add up, some
Republican strategists think Huckabee will drop out. "The Huck
will suspend after Texas," predicted one. "He's tired of being the
star forward of the Washington Generals against the McCain
Globetrotters."
The NYT fronts, and everyone goes inside with, Hamas quickly
declaring victory after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as
militants continued launching rockets into the Jewish state. The
NYT emphasizes that it looks like Hamas is taking on tactics that
are typical of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was clear yesterday
when the Hamas leader vowed to reconstruct homes that were
damaged by the Israeli strikes. The parallels aren't lost on Israeli
officials, who say they are convinced that Hezbollah is helping
Hamas with "training and logistical support." But the LAT says
there's a growing debate inside Gaza about the wisdom of
continuing the rocket attacks into Israel, which some see as a
way for Hamas to maintain its support among Palestinians by
continually provoking Israel.
The WP and NYT go inside with news that charges were dropped
against two former high-ranking Shiite government officials
accused of running death squads in Iraq. The move once again
raises questions about the independence of Iraq's judiciary and
whether the government would ever be able to hold Shiites
accountable for perpetrating sectarian violence.
The NYT fronts word that Love and Consequences, a memoir by
Margaret B. Jones that received rave reviews, was all made up.
The author of the work is really Margaret Seltzer, and she
confessed to the NYT in a "sometimes tearful, often contrite"
telephone interview. Instead of a half-white, half-Native
American who was raised by a black foster mother in a tough
neighborhood of Los Angeles and sold drugs for the Bloods
gang, Seltzer is a white woman who was raised by her biological
family in a well-off area of San Fernando Valley and went to an
exclusive private school. The story began unfolding when her
sister saw a profile of "Jones" in the NYT (which apparently
didn't check any of her claims) last week and alerted the
publisher. Seltzer admits she made a mistake but emphasized the
book was based on real experiences of her friends, and she said
she wrote it while "sitting at the Starbucks" in South Central Los
Angeles, where "I would talk to kids who were Black Panthers
and kids who were gang members and kids who were not."
today's papers
Double Trouble
By Daniel Politi
Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:20 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas suspending all peace talks with Israel as violence
continued to rage across the region yesterday, although with
fewer casualties than on Saturday. More than 100 Palestinians
(the Associated Press puts the number at 114) have been killed
since Wednesday, and Abbas said talks will resume once Israel
ends its "criminal war on the Palestinian people." The Los
Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox
lead with the Russian elections, where, to the surprise of no one,
Dmitry Medvedev won a landslide victory by collecting more
than 70 percent of the vote. Now the question on everybody's
mind is whether Vladimir Putin and his handpicked successor
will be able to share power effectively.
USA Today leads with the latest from the Democratic
presidential race as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
prepare for Tuesday's crucial primaries. Both candidates were in
Ohio yesterday and traded critical words on familiar issues,
including Obama's inexperience and Clinton's poor judgment for
voting to authorize the Iraq invasion. The New York Times leads
with a look at how a number of states and cities are complaining
that Wall Street's system to rate municipal bonds is unfair. It's a
complicated issue but it comes down to a complaint that Wall
Street gives municipal borrowers low credit scores compared
with corporations, despite the fact that "states and cities rarely
dishonor their debts." This lower rating makes it more expensive
for cities and states to borrow money, forces them to buy
expensive insurance policies, and ultimately ends up transferring
billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the financial markets
that could be used for local projects. But ratings agencies dispute
these assertions and emphasize that little or no money would be
saved if the system changed.
Despite the continued strikes in Gaza, Palestinian militants
continued to fire rockets into Israel yesterday while the United
Nations condemned the Israeli attacks as "disproportionate." The
WSJ makes clear that the recent outbreak in violence is a "blow
to the Bush administration" that had previously hoped there
could be a peace deal by the end of the year. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will begin a trip to the region today, and
although the administration had hoped that she could pressure
both sides to move along on a deal, it now looks like she will
have to spend her time trying to end the current bout of violence.
In a particularly insightful analysis, the NYT's Helene Cooper
writes that Hamas has made it clear that by controlling Gaza it
can be a player in the negotiations and now "the United States
finds itself with dwindling choices, none considered attractive."
Rice could encourage Israel to increase attacks against Hamas,
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
87/124
but that would undoubtedly result in more condemnation from
the Fatah-controlled West Bank and could actually increase
Hamas' power, just as Hezbollah benefited from the Israeli
strikes in Lebanon. Alternatively, Rice can't exactly pressure
Israel to negotiate with Hamas, which would undermine Abbas
and bring further legitimacy to the group that is widely seen as a
terrorist organization. "Excluding them doesn't work, and
including them doesn't work, either," a former U.S. ambassador
to Israel said. "This is a situation that does not lend itself to a
sensible policy."
Even as Medvedev vowed to continue with Putin's policies,
many continue to be skeptical that there can be such a thing as
shared power in a country that has "traditionally been ruled by a
single strongman," as the LAT puts it. Some are cautioning that
Medvedev won't turn out to be as much of a puppet as many are
expecting (the LAT shares a common joke: "Putin and Medvedev
sit in a restaurant. Putin: 'I'll have the steak.' Waiter: 'And what
about the vegetable?' Putin: 'He'll take the steak too.' ") and
could end up making a grab for power further down the line. The
NYT notes that even if Medvedev and Putin don't clash on a
personal level, "the very fact that there will be two centers of
power could stoke conflicts."
Pressure continued to grow on Clinton to drop out of the
presidential race if she doesn't get good results out of Tuesday's
primary. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson characterized it as
"D-Day" and said: "Whoever has the most delegates after
Tuesday, a clear lead, should be, in my judgment, the nominee."
But as the WP reminds readers, "Obama has such a big lead in
pledged delegates that there is virtually no way Clinton can
overtake him on Tuesday." Advisers are hoping that she'll be
able to keep her candidacy going by winning the popular vote,
even if that means they'll both get about the same number of
delegates. The NYT points out that Clinton's campaign "has been
steadily managing expectations" and is now suggesting she can
keep going as long as she wins Ohio.
The LAT fronts an overview piece looking into the internal
problems and squabbles that brought problems to Clinton's
campaign and contributed to her current predicament. There
have been a number of turf wars as her staffers have been
constantly plagued by a debate over whether Clinton's defeats
were a question of organization or message. Even as Clinton
continues to be optimistic about her prospects, it seems some of
her most high-level staffers are quickly trying to distance
themselves. Strategist Mark Penn, who has often been pointed to
as a source of conflict, tells the LAT that his influence has been
largely exaggerated and he had "no direct authority in the
campaign."
All the papers go inside with the rising tensions in South
America a day after Colombian forces killed a senior guerilla
leader inside Ecuador. Colombian officials apologized for the
incursion into Ecuador's soil, where troops killed 17 members of
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, including its
second-ranking commander. But Rafael Correa, Ecuador's
president, rejected the apology, kicked out Colombia's
ambassador, withdrew his ambassador from Bogota, and moved
additional troops to the border. For his part, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, who has friendly ties with the leftist
guerilla group, mobilized troops to its border with Colombia and
sternly warned against any incursions. "This could be the start of
a war in South America," Chavez said. The LAT also catches
word that Colombian officials announced they recovered a few
laptops in the guerilla camp that show the slain rebel leader held
meetings with Ecuadorean officials.
USAT fronts a look at how federal prosecutors are using
documents that were recovered in Iraq to bring charges against
alleged spies who were working in the United States during
Saddam Hussein's regime. So far, 12 people have been charged
and there are more ongoing investigations. These agents weren't
spies in the conventional sense because they weren't out to
uncover government secrets, but rather were told to infiltrate
opposition groups, keep tabs on Iraqi immigrants, and figure out
ways to influence U.S. policy. The Justice Department says it's
the first time since the Cold War that it has brought so many
charges against foreign agents from one country.
Back to the Russian elections for a moment, the LAT points out
that so little is known about Medvedev and what his relationship
with Putin will be like that analysts look for signs in the
unlikeliest of places. Lately, the subject of wristwatches has
come up. "Putin wears his watch on the right wrist; Medvedev
on the left," explains the LAT. "Kremlin watchers say some of
the United Russia party faithful have begun to switch their
watches from right wrist to left to signal loyalty to the new
chief."
today's papers
Gaza Goes South
By Lydia DePillis
Sunday, March 2, 2008, at 6:46 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with the breaking news of the
weekend: Israel has launched a new incursion into the Gaza
Strip, killing 60 Palestinians—half of them civilians—in the
area's deadliest day since 2000. The Los Angeles Times leads
with an analysis of how the new popularity of corn ethanol as a
source of fuel could lead to price shocks in everything from food
to gasoline, especially if any kind of drought hits this summer.
The New York Times runs with election news, highlighting Sen.
Barack Obama's heavy spending on television advertisements in
Texas and Ohio, which will vote on Tuesday.
88/124
The latest clash in Gaza had been building since Wednesday,
when Israel hit a van carrying five Hamas members thought to
be planning an attack inside the country, setting off a hailstorm
of rockets and mortars from militants in Gaza. The WP story
focuses on the diplomatic implications for President Bush's
attempt to negotiate a settlement between the governments
anytime soon (they don't look good), paired with an analysis of
the United States' shrinking role in Middle East politics. The
NYT's Page 3 coverage instead emphasizes the experience of
civilians under fire and suggests that Hamas may be attempting
to lure Israel into a major ground operation. The Israeli army
contends that the escalation is nothing out of the ordinary, but
rather "within the scope" of activities carried out in Gaza since
the army has been permanently engaged there. According to the
LAT, it may not be so for long: Defense Minister Ehud Barak has
been signaling that a larger operation may launch when the
weather warms up.
Turning to another battleground, candidates are going full tilt
before the Tuesday primaries, where Obama has $50 million to
spend over Hillary's $30 million, plus television input from
independent heavyweights like the SEIU: "If this can be
purchased, he can win it," said Gov. Ted Strickland, a Hillary
supporter. Potentially more problematic for the Hillary camp is a
scheduled concert by popular indie-rock band and Obama
supporters Arcade Fire, which may prompt at least a few
temporary desertions. Although Ohio voters remain focused on
the economy, the Post's front-page coverage features the impact
of the candidates' pitches on foreign policy, noting the
prominence of arguments over what each would do with a red
phone. The paper also finds that youth may trump ethnicity in
the battle for the Latino vote—long considered a check in
Clinton's column—as younger Hispanics increasingly stump for
Obama.
It's also Women's Day in election coverage, as the LAT looks
into feminist debates over the number of females jumping ship
for Obama. A piece in the Post's Outlook section breaks the split
down along class lines: Maria Shriver-types favor Obama, while
the less-educated stick with female solidarity. A companion
piece bemoans the tendency of "us women" to fall for the
sentimental and superficial pitches of both sides.
If you didn't know that Russia was picking its new leader today,
you'd be forgiven: Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the
subject of an illuminating below-the-fold profile in the Post, had
it made as soon as he got the endorsement of President Putin.
Forty-two-year-old Medvedev, a former law professor, talks a
good game about personal freedom and cracking down on
corruption—but with the possibility of Putin becoming his prime
minister, observers say, those claims will need some backing up.
For more on elections, the NYT reports (and the WP barely
catches) news that days after a settlement had been reached
following weeks of post-election violence in Kenya, Armenia
seems to be following suit, declaring a state of emergency 11
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
days into clashes between police and people protesting an
election they say was stolen. And even after a changing of the
guard in Pakistan, U.S. troops will help the country form an
86,000-strong paramilitary force called the "Frontier Corps," in
what the NYT calls "another sign of the Bush administration's
concern and frustration with Pakistan's failure to do more about
Al Qaeda's movement in the tribal areas."
Perhaps most sobering of all, the janjaweed are back in Darfur,
intones the lede for a center-stage story on the NYT front page.
The Sudanese government has in recent weeks re-employed the
fearsome Arab militias that terrorized villages on horseback in
earlier stages of the conflict, turning to a scorched-earth policy
to reclaim territory from rebels who vacated for a period in
February to come to the aid of the president of Chad, with whom
they have close ties.
In front-page economic news, the WP makes concrete that
creeping feeling that things are not all right in corporate
America, talking to businesses in all sectors (although mostly
D.C.-area-based) that are cutting jobs to insulate themselves
from the downturn. It's not as bad as the 2001 recession yet, but
deflated consumer spending is having ripple effects through the
corporate sector, which in turn—as the NYT notes in a similar
story back in Business—hurts people looking for jobs on the
lower end of the pay scale.
The LAT thinks it has hit upon a scandal in the overvaluing of
multimillion dollar pieces of art used as tax write-offs,
estimating that half the donations over the last 20 years were
appraised at double their actual value. Elsewhere in swindle
news, and continuing with its coverage of how seniors get
screwed in America, the NYT fronts a long piece on the selling
of "reverse mortgages": payments tied to the value of a home
that only need to be repaid when the owner moves out or dies.
Drawing heavily on the experience of one elderly woman who
says she lost thousands of dollars in a scheme, the paper
recounts dozens of sketchy details about a $20-billion-a-year
industry that says it's only trying to help seniors out.
In probably the most underplayed story of the day, the WP runs
news on A7 that President Bush is speaking out to oppose the
dozens of lawsuits pending against telecommunications firms
that, if allowed to go forward, would establish whether
companies including AT&T, Cingular, and Verizon had handed
over phone records en masse to the government. Bush's primary
concern is that airing e-mails and other documentation pertinent
to the case would "aid our enemies" and "give al-Qaeda and
others a road map as to how to avoid the surveillance." Also,
Bush pushed back against the high-level unnamed source who
yesterday told newspapers that the administration was planning
to withdraw troops from Iraq before the end of the year,
following a drawdown pause in July to accommodate provincial
elections. Bush reiterated that no decision had been made—
somebody's either out of the loop or lying here, folks.*
89/124
Anyone wanting to understand what's going on in the broader
Middle East should take a gander at veteran Washington Post
reporter Robin Wright's new book, which apparently even has an
optimistic side. Or just read her piece in Outlook.
Anyone wanting to read one more Bush retrospective might pick
up Bushism chronicler and Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg's book
The Bush Tragedy, which reviewer Alan Brinkley deems
"mostly persuasive," if occasionally "highly speculative."
Brinkley also points out that tragedies usually involve some
amount of talent squandered and self-awareness of failure, which
Weisberg argues that this presidency lacks.
The NYT took the time to collect a few voices from the dead,
giving has-been presidential candidates the chance to hammer
away at pet issues one more time. One of them, the Hon. Dennis
Kucinich, may be more dead than others.
Correction, March 3, 2008: This piece originally stated that an
unnamed source in the Bush administration said troops
reductions were being planned for July. The plan allegedly calls
for troop withdrawal by the end of the year, with pauses in July
for provincial elections. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
today's papers
Bad News for Boeing
By Ben Whitford
Saturday, March 1, 2008, at 6:01 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times leads, and the New York Times off-leads,
on the Pentagon's unexpected decision to award a $40 billion
contract for aerial refueling tankers to a U.S.-European
partnership between Northrop Grumman and Airbus rather than
to Boeing. The NYT and the Wall Street Journal lead with news
from Wall Street, where a series of negative economic and
financial reports sent shares tumbling. The Washington Post
leads local, reporting on the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling that
a regional transport authority has no legal right to impose taxes
to fund transit projects.
The Air Force says that its decision to pass over Boeing for a
massive air-tanker contract was a no-brainer, with the NorthropAirbus proposal offering better value and better performance
across the board. Still, the decision riled many who believe
military hardware ought to be entirely homegrown: "This isn't an
upset," one analyst gasped to the NYT. "It's an earthquake." The
Post reports that the Pentagon took painstaking efforts to ensure
its selection process would withstand scrutiny—essential not
least because, as the WSJ notes, previous plans to award a
similar contract to Boeing were shelved after negotiations were
found to have been conducted illegally. A protracted
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
congressional battle is now expected; the LAT reports that both
Boeing and Northrop have already spent hundreds of thousands
of dollars hiring lobbyists to argue their case.
Things are looking bleak on Wall Street: The NYT reports that a
new study suggests financial institutions could lose up to $600
billion amid continuing turmoil in the global credit markets. The
news spooked already wary investors, fueling sell-offs that saw
both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones slump more than 2.5
percent. The WSJ argues that the stock market is stuck in a rut
and ponders the wisdom of the massive write-downs being
posted by financial firms: it's unclear whether current accounting
rules make matters better or worse. Meanwhile, billionaire
investor Warren Buffet takes a swipe at America's financial
firms in his latest letter to investors: "You only learn who has
been swimming naked when the tide goes out," he wrote. "And
what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial
institutions is an ugly sight."
Hillary Clinton upped the ante yesterday ahead of Tuesday's
crucial primary votes in Texas and Ohio, running provocative
TV ads that the NYT says "all but declared Senator Barack
Obama unprepared to serve as commander in chief." The ads
show children sleeping while an international crisis brews and a
phone rings, unanswered, in the White House; the announcer
says that only Clinton has the experience "to lead in a dangerous
world" and asks: "Who do you want answering the phone?" The
LAT notes that Clinton staffers hope the ad will rally female
voters in a repeat of the last-minute surge that helped Hillary to
victory in New Hampshire. With everyone—including Slate's
John Dickerson—noting parallels to Walter Mondale's 1984 "red
phone" ad, Obama countered with an ad of his own, arguing that
Clinton had already fluffed her "red phone" moment by backing
the war in Iraq.
The Post reports that behind the scenes, Clinton strategists were
yesterday trying to downplay the necessity of winning both
Texas and Ohio in Tuesday's vote. Still, the WSJ notes that if
Hillary fails to pick up both states—or if Texas' complex
primary-caucus hybrid ends in tears—she'll likely face pressure
to step aside for the good of the party. Bob Herbert picks up the
theme in the NYT: "Tuesday's elections may decide the nominee.
But if they don't, the wisest heads in the party will be faced with
the awesome task of preventing a train wreck that would ruin
what was supposed to have been a banner year."
All the papers quote an unnamed "senior White House official,"
who said yesterday that the Bush administration would resume
withdrawing troops from Iraq following a short pause this
summer. "This is not a stall tactic," the official said. "I fully
expect further reductions this year, in '08, and so does the
president." There's no indication, though, of how many troops
will be withdrawn; the NYT speculates that Bush might order
only token withdrawals, leaving the final decision to his
successor.
90/124
Under pressure from the United States, Turkey yesterday
announced that it had withdrawn its troops from northern Iraq,
bringing to a close an eight-day offensive against Kurdish
guerrillas. It's hard to gauge the operation's impact; the NYT
notes that Kurdish and Turkish spokesmen gave contradictory
accounts, each claiming their side had killed hundreds of enemy
fighters while incurring minimal losses. The Post notes that U.S.
officials were skeptical about the Turkish statement, since a full
withdrawal would take several days to complete.
Everyone gives big play to the British defense ministry's
decision to recall Prince Harry from military service in
Afghanistan; the move came after the Drudge Report broke a
media embargo that had kept the prince's deployment secret for
10 weeks. The Post notes that even Britain's much-derided
tabloid editors considered the leaked report "a cheap hit"; the
LAT is more critical of the British media's complicity in
concealing Harry's presence on the front lines. Still, as the NYT
notes, the press pack were careful to commit only to covering up
the rowdy prince's military activity: "If Prince Harry had
managed to find a nightclub in Kabul, that news would have
been acceptable to report," one tabloid editor sighed.
tv club
The Wire Final Season
into its final run, coming off two bad years. Its last episodes—
which really were incredible—seemed even better because they
followed dud seasons. The Wire has no such luck.)
Here's a good sign: Season 5 begins with a tight close-up on the
face of homicide detective Bunk Moreland, who's in the process
of conning a particularly dim murder suspect into confessing, in
part by rigging up a Xerox machine as a "lie detector." Bunk, the
profane teddy bear, is one of my favorite Wire regulars (though
that list is so long it's hardly worth keeping anymore: Bunk,
Omar, Clay Davis, Stringer Bell, Prop Joe, Herc, Snoop,
Namond, Dukie, Norman, Cutty …). Now that I think of it, Jeff,
if you were a Wire character, you'd be Bunk—funny, ironic,
lovable, and brilliant. Anyway, if this season is going to give us
plenty of Bunk, it's going to be all right with me.
That said, I found the opening episode promising but a little too
busy. It threw a huge number of balls in the air, almost too many
to follow: a brewing battle between Marlo and Prop Joe; the
collapse of the police department, McNulty's return to
alcoholism, womanizing, and the homicide squad; Bubbles' sorry
attempt at rehab; a shady real estate deal rigged by the citycouncil president; the investigation of Clay Davis; Carcetti's
descent into pure political opportunism; Herc's new dirty tricks;
Dukie's failure as a drug dealer. … And I am skipping a bunch,
notably the Baltimore Sun, which is going to be a central
character in Season 5 the way the schools were in Season 4 and
the docks were in Season 2.
Week 9: Snoop wasn't talking about a domestic shorthair.
By Jeffrey Goldberg, David Plotz, John Swansburg, and June
Thomas
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 1:44 PM ET
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 1: How Do You Follow Up the Best Season of the Best Show
Ever?
Updated Monday, January 7, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET
Remember that time you had an awesome college girlfriend and
you hadn't seen her all summer and it was finally the first day
back on campus? That's approximately how I feel about the
return of The Wire for its fifth and final season.
As Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg observed a year ago, The Wire
is not merely the best show on television now, but the best show
that has ever been on television. And Season 4, which focused
on the catastrophic lives of four Baltimore schoolboys, was The
Wire's best season. So, Season 5 has a practically impossible
task: It's following the best season ever of the best show ever—
how could it not be a letdown? (Compare this to The Sopranos,
The Wire's rival for show of the century. The Sopranos limped
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
I'm a little worried about the Baltimore Sun plot. I've had two
brief conversations with David Simon—he's a friend of a
friend—and my wife has had two long ones. In all four of those
exchanges, Simon demonstrated an obsession with the Sun that
bordered on monomania. There Hanna and I were, slobbering to
him about Omar, and Simon kept changing the subject to stories
that his editors had screwed up 19 years ago. I'm praying that his
fury at the Sun won't overwhelm his genius for storytelling. The
signs in Episode 1 are good: The Sun characters—most notably
city editor Gus Haynes—are vivid and humane, and there's only
one heavy-handed scene (the one where the Sun's blowhard
editor squashes a story idea). And it gets the newspaper
uniform—the cheap looking ties and dingy striped dress shirts—
exactly right.
Finally, let me pay homage to the miracle of Snoop: She utters
only one sentence, and it's the best line in the episode. She's
explaining to a reluctant partner of Marlo how she'll retaliate if
he doesn't cooperate: "We will be brief with all you mother----rs—I think you know."
Best,
David
91/124
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 1: I'm Worried
Posted Monday, January 7, 2008, at 11:01 AM ET
Dear David,
Yes, I remember the time I had an awesome college girlfriend
and I hadn't seen her all summer and it was finally the first day
back on campus. I remember that time very well, because she
had decided, over the summer, to start wearing black nail polish,
stop shaving her armpits, and go to Nicaragua to help the
Sandinistas pick coffee beans or some shit like that. Luckily, I
didn't like her anyway.
The way I felt when I made these unhappy discoveries is a little
bit the way I felt after watching the first episode of the final
season of The Wire last night. I was enjoying myself just fine for
the first 20 minutes or so, becoming reacquainted with some of
my favorite drug dealers—the intensely lovable psycho-killer
Snoop most of all—and scandalous cops. But then we entered
the newsroom of the Baltimore Sun, and it was straight-up
whiskey-tango-foxtrot time for me. I thought the show stopped
dead, just about the time we were introduced to the saintly city
editor and the darkly ambitious white-boy reporter. But let me
not get ahead of myself here. We are told that the collapse of
big-city journalism is the show's theme this season, so the two of
us will have plenty of time to discuss the thing that interests all
reporters more than anything else—namely, us.
First, let me dissent from Mr. Weisberg's audacious claim that
The Wire is the best show on television ever. I think that I would
have agreed with his assertion, except that I recently watched, in
seriatum, the first season of The Sopranos, which is just pure
Shakespeare. Actually, it's better than Shakespeare, because
Paulie Walnuts isn't in Shakespeare.
It has become a cliché to call The Wire Dickensian, because it so
clearly is, but it's no insult to Dickens to say that he's no
Shakespeare. Of course, The Sopranos has had more bad seasons
than The Wire, but that is in part because it has had more seasons
than The Wire. So, I would say that The Wire is perhaps the
second-best series on television ever. Welcome Back, Kotter, of
course, rounds out the top three. Talk about a realistic portrayal
of urban school life!
In re: the comparison between me and Bunk: Are you calling me
fat?
I agree with you that Bunk is a wonderful character, and I agree
with you that the list of great characters is nearly as long as the
cast list itself. My favorite, Snoop aside, is Omar, and I missed
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
him last night. I'll take more Bunk, more Omar, and less of the
Baltimore Sun. Why, you ask, have I had such a negative
reaction to the Sun crew? The brilliance of this show is its
complexity: Never before, apart from the novels of Richard
Price or the genius George Pelecanos (both of whom write for
The Wire, naturally), have we had such a fully realized, tangledup, humane, and morally ambiguous portrayal of the black innercity, and not only its criminal underclass, but the cops who fight
the robbers: Bunny Colvin, the erstwhile mayor of Hamsterdam,
was one of David Simon's greatest creations, and, in a just
world, Clarke Peters, who plays Det. Lester Freamon, would win
a bucketful of Emmys. (Of course, the show has won exactly no
Emmys, which is insane and worthy of much discussion.)
In our early glimpse of the Sun newsroom, we're not seeing
much in the way of gray: just asshole bosses, a fantasy-camp
city editor, a brooding and envious general assignment reporter
and his naive-seeming Hispanic colleague, who gave us the most
unrealistic moment last night: After she is publicly humiliated by
the grammarians of the city desk, she actually seems grateful.
Give me a break.
I have to tell you, David, I'm worried about this: We all know
that David Simon is obsessed by the injustices wrought against
the Sun, his former employer, but I'm hoping that his desire for
revenge hasn't blinded him to the need for dramatic complexity.
Best,
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 1: Does the Journalism Feel Clichéd Because We're Journalists?
Posted Monday, January 7, 2008, at 12:12 PM ET
Jeff,
Having now seen the episode again—I watched the first time
when my wife was out, which is a hanging offense in our house,
so I had to do a second viewing with her—I share some of your
concerns about the Sun newsroom. I actually like the darkly
ambitious white-boy reporter. He reminds me powerfully of, oh,
three or four or 40 friends at the Post and Times. And the
exchange about the photo of the burned doll was inspired. But
you're right that most of the newsroom characters—the crusty,
big-hearted city editor, the pompous editor, the crotchety
grammar-fascist old-timer—arrive as caricatures, and do very
little in Episode 1 to flesh themselves out.
92/124
Still, it's not surprising that the newspaper seems familiar—and
trite—to us, because it's the ocean we swim in. If we were drug
dealers or cops (God help the public!), maybe we would have
felt the same way about Episode 1 of The Wire's first season.
Maybe drunk-cynical-but-brilliant homicide detective McNulty
is just as much a cliché in Copworld as cranky-romantic-andfearless city editor Gus is in ours. Maybe we have to make a
conscious effort to watch the newspaper subplot as outsiders
rather than insiders. If we watch as insiders, we're bound to be
disappointed: It will inevitably feel clichéd or dishonest.
Don't you think that Simon is taking Mayor Carcetti a little too
far to the dark side? When we left him at the end of Season 4,
his political ambitions and his idealism were synchronized: They
fed on each other. Now he's nothing but naked political
ambition. If I'm remembering correctly, the very first words he
speaks in the episode are about crime stats, the subject he spent
all of last season deriding. I suspect he'd be more realistic, and
more interesting, if they let him retain some trace of his old googoo self.
Attorney seemed motivated by righteous fury. It's no surprise
that a sitting mayor would have an appreciation for low crime
statistics. I've actually thought that Carcetti was, in a way, a
stand-in for David Simon, who is made angry by—well, most
everything, as Mark Bowden's new piece in the Atlantic
shows—but mostly by the systematic abandonment of urban
America. The bleakest moments for me in The Wire have not
been the scenes of drug violence (although the harassment of
Bubbles last season did break my heart), but those very effective
moments, many starring Carcetti, which persuasively show that
Baltimore itself is no longer a viable enterprise, and the reason
it's not is because it is populated mainly by poor AfricanAmericans, about whom America—Barack Obama
notwithstanding—still doesn't give a shit. America's general
disinterest in The Wire (and certainly the general disinterest of
the people who vote for the Emmys) is a corollary to this larger
disinterest, by the way.
Jeff
Oh, and calling you a "Teddy Bear" was too subtle for you? You
need me to spell it out?
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 1: Do We Really Want a President Who Would Skip The Wire
Premiere?
Posted Monday, January 7, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 1: Baltimore Is No Longer a Viable Enterprise
Posted Monday, January 7, 2008, at 2:14 PM ET
Dear David,
I admit, I wondered whether my reaction to the newsroom
scenes was one of contempt born of familiarity. And it's
certainly true that I've run into editors who have been
monochromatically assholish, and reporters who absolutely
burned with ambition. Why, it's even been said that I have, on
occasion, burned with ambition. You, too, burn with ambition,
but it's not so noticeable, because you're so unambitious about it.
But: I think I know a little bit about cops, being related to cops,
and, more to the point, having written about cops, and David
Simon's cops generally pass the verisimilitude test, and this
newsroom, so far at least, does not. But, as they say on the TV
news, only time will tell.
I don't see what you see in Carcetti. He's not shaking anyone
down, is he? He's just trying to better his city and himself, which
is what you'd expect. And his attack on the scumbag U.S.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Dear Jeff,
Speaking of Obama, did you know that The Wire is one of his
favorite shows? But—and here's the kind of scoop that makes
Slate the must-read that it is—according to my colleague Chris
Beam, Obama actually missed last night's premiere. I know
Obama's busy, but The Wire is The Wire! Doesn't the
Manchester, N.H., Radisson have HBO?
As for your excellent observation that The Wire is bleakest when
it shows the nonviability of Baltimore, I've been puzzling over
that question for a long time. When I was in college, during the
depths of the crack epidemic, it was widely believed that the
American city was doomed. Sure, centerless megasuburbs like
Phoenix would survive, but the sunny-side-up city, with a rich
delicious center, was written off. In the 20 years since, though,
center cities have bounced back: most notably New York, but
lots of other ones, too—Boston, Chicago, even our own fair city
of Washington, D.C., have filled back in with downtowns
livelier than they were 30 years ago. So, why is the renaissance
not universal? Why are some cities worse than ever? For a
sheltered white yuppie like me, Baltimore remains a terrifying, I
Am Legend-nightmare, where any wrong turn can take you down
a street that's at once empty and terrifying.
93/124
So, what is it, ultimately, that distinguishes the New Yorks from
the Baltimores? Is it race? Or poverty? Or the vagaries of the
global economy? (New York has rebounded because Wall Street
and the entertainment industry have had 15 fantastic years.) Or
governing and policing strategies? Is it truly inevitable that
Baltimore must fail?
From: John Swansburg
To: Jeffrey Goldberg and David Plotz
Subject: David Simon Responds
David
David and Jeff,
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 1: I Get Why David Simon Is Angry
Posted Monday, January 7, 2008, at 4:47 PM ET
Dear David,
Well, you're one deep-thinking dude. I thought we were going to
talk about killer Snoop and Robin Hood Omar the whole time.
Let's look at the cities you mentioned: New York is New York,
the world capital of finance. So, it has the money to stay afloat.
Boston is the world academic center. If Washington goes out of
business, America goes out of business. Baltimore, on the other
hand, has what? Johns Hopkins, which is something, but not
enough. It doesn't give meaning to Baltimore the way Yale gives
meaning to New Haven, and believe me, as someone who lived
in New Haven (don't worry, Yale wouldn't have taken me in a
million years; it was my wife that brung me to that dance), New
Haven is barely floating. What else does Baltimore have? That
crappy Inner Harbor, with its wildly overpriced aquarium and its
World's Fair-circa-1972 feel? Some cities get passed by, and
some don't. Baltimore seems to have been passed by. And you're
on to something: The percentage of a city's population that's
African-American has something to do with the overall health of
the city; there's simply no way around the fact that the murder
and sickness and general debasement of urban AfricanAmericans don't register as crises to most Americans. Every
time I read a front-page story about death in Baghdad, I ask
myself: How many African-Americans died violent deaths in the
same time period in American cities, without anything more than
a news brief to record the awful fact? In other words, I get why
David Simon is angry.
By the way, Obama's love of The Wire speaks well of him. I
don't picture Hillary going in for this sort of thing.
Jeff
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Posted Tuesday, January 8, 2008, at 5:25 PM ET
A quick note from your TV Club editor. It seems David Simon
came across David's first TV Club post on a blog called
Ubiquitous Marketing and had a few thoughts on it. Here they
are:
Just curious:
What were the circumstances at which those
conversations occurred? When I am at say, at a
book-release party with a bunch of journos, or
at a wedding table, where I am seated
exclusively with newspaper people, or simply
talking to a noted reporter or editor, the
conversation is often about journalism and
quite naturally, my unlikely transition from
newspapering to television also is a topic and
yes, I am very blunt about what went bad for
me at The Sun, and for many, many others
there as well.
If it were at a party of say, Baltimore cops,
then the drug war, or the copshop, or the bar
tab itself would predominate. And journalism
and/or my experiences in journalism would go
unmentioned in any regard.
Entertainment industry people? We talk about
the business.
Drug dealers? We talk about the, um, business.
And in all instances when people come up to
me to discuss how much they love them some
Omar and how he's the bestest character ever,
well, okay, my eyes do glaze to the point of
distraction and I do desperately try to change
the subject back to whatever the collective
conversational zeitgeist might be at a given
gathering.
I was a newspaperman from my high school
paper until I left the Sun at age 35. It was a
delight to me. It informs my work in myriad
ways. At some point, it went bad. And the fact
is, you'll not find me speaking openly against
94/124
the fellows who made it go bad for long after
my departure. I held my tongue pretty well
despite my low regard for those fellows. But in
2000, five years after I left The Sun, those cats
finally made clear that they had dragged The
Sun into a journalistic fraud through the same
myopia and indifference that later cost
[Howell] Raines and Gerald Boyd their
careers, except they did so despite private
warnings about the reporter who was the
problem. Why yes, at that point—which you
describe as 19 years ago, though it is in fact,
seven—I got angry and vocal and direct.
Mr. Carroll and Mr. Marimow are notable
journalists with impressive resumes. They
have done some fine things, I am sure. But in
Baltimore, in their hunger for prizes, they
tolerated and defended a reporter who was
making it up wholesale. Events, quotes,
meetings at which people were supposed to
have spoken powerfully about The Sun's
powerful coverage of a Pulitzer-worthy issue
but never said any such thing—it was simply
farce. Yet even after that third retracted article,
they continued to defend the behavior as the
honest mistakes of a good, aggressive reporter.
To flourish, shit like that relies on silence and
fear within the newsroom, and complicity
within the industry itself. And at the point
when the third story had been retracted in full
and these guys were still trying to mitigate the
fraud and accept no responsibility for it, I
resolved that I was going to speak to it openly
and without regard to decorum. I make no
apologies whatsoever for that. I grew up a
newspaperman; I do not know how to regard
newspapermen who would go out of their way,
over a period of years, to continually retract
stories by the same reporter and continue to
defend such. And so, when I meet other
journos, I am full-throated in a way that
everyone still in the game never manages to be
when it comes to a yet-to-be-outed Blair,
Bragg, Kelley, or Glass. These scandals keep
coming one after another and everyone
pretends that they are aberrations, that the only
guilty parties have all been caught, that there
isn't an underlying and fundamental problem
with prizes and ambition and accountability
that is inherent within the shrinking pond that
is print journalism.
I loved my newspaper and I loved working for
my newspaper; and given the basic ethics of
newspapering, I don't know how not to be
angry over what happened there. You want to
call that sour grapes? No problem. Call it
spoiled roast. It is what it is. I got in the
business thinking certain things about
journalism; naively, maybe, I took that shit to
heart. My mistake, apparently.
That said, if you've ever taken an Introduction
to Logic course, you know that Argumentum
Ad Hominem, while a stock maneuver in most
half-assed journalism and commentary, is the
weakest sort of intellectual crutch. If you are
serious in addressing something, then ideas
matter, not the man. The Wire's depiction of
the multitude of problems facing newspapers
and high-end journalism will either stand or
fall on what happens on screen, not on the
back-hallway debate over the past histories,
opinions passions or peculiarities of those who
create it. I've got a secret for you cats: Ed
Burns has some pretty fierce feelings about the
people he worked for and with in the
Baltimore Police Department and the
Baltimore Public School System. Do you
really believe that insiders in the B.P.D. and
school system can't recognize certain specific
references to reality in the previous 50 hours
of television? Writers of fiction cannibalize
their most meaningful experiences and then
regurgitate them and hope for the best. There
is nothing at all new to this.
The only difference between your discussion
of seasons one through four and the current
one seems to be that you did not encounter Ed
Burns at a party. Next time we meet, remind
me to talk about the Orioles parsimony when it
comes to pitching or my complete collection
of Professor Longhair albums in order that you
might be able to address yourselves to the
work itself, for better or for worse.
Best,
David Simon
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 2: All Thrust, No Vector
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
95/124
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 7:42 AM ET
David,
Well, you've achieved the possible—you've pissed off David
Simon. You have now gone where, well, thousands of people
have gone before. Perhaps it was this line of yours, from last
week's dialogue, that triggered the attack: "The Wire is not
merely the best show on television now, but the best show that
has ever been on television."
What did you expect after you delivered yourself of such praise?
A thank you? A basket of muffins?
I reread Mark Bowden's excellent piece on Simon in this month's
issue of my magazine, the Atlantic, after receiving Simon's
complaint about you. Bowden, like you, is an unabashed partisan
of the show: "The show's boxed sets blend nicely on the
bookshelf with the great novels of American history," he wrote.
Naturally, Simon is infuriated with him, as well. In the course of
unpacking Simon's epic, unidirectional dispute with Bill
Marimow and John Carroll, the one-time Baltimore Sun editors
who, in Simon's view, destroyed the paper, Bowden makes an
obvious mistake: He decides to remain neutral in the fight.
"When I discovered," Bowden wrote, "after my last conversation
with Simon, that the final season of the show would be based on
his experiences at The Sun, I felt compelled to describe the
dispute, but I resolved to characterize it without entering it."
Bowden showed Simon a draft of his piece, "which provoked a
series of angry, long-winded accusations" in which Simon
impugned Bowden's journalistic integrity to the editor of the
Atlantic, which is amusing, of course, because Bowden is one of
the five or six best reporters in America.
Which brings me back to your first posting and Simon's response
to it. Simon accuses you of … I'm not sure what, precisely.
Violating his privacy by reporting on a conversation you had at a
wedding? Sort of. Mischaracterizing that conversation? Not
exactly, either, since he pretty much admits that, in conversation
with other reporters, he's fairly monomaniacal on the subject of
Marimow and Carroll and their manifold sins. His lengthy post
seems to confirm your analysis. As did the second episode,
which I'll get to, briefly, in a second. But to conclude this sorry
conversation: This is a man who is all thrust, no vector. He's
mad at the rapacious capitalists who have destroyed the
American city, and he's mad at reporters who praise him. A little
bit of discernment would be useful here. I don't know much
about the Carroll-Marimow years at the Sun, but I do know that
Marimow, as a reporter, was one of the greats, taking on a
grotesque and frightening Philadelphia Police Department, and
changing his city for the better, and I do know that Carroll quit
the Los Angeles Times rather than gut its newsroom.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Which is why his Carroll stand-in, the dim-bulb, corporate hack
executive editor, seems like a semi-unreal character to me. Very
few big-city-paper editors are quite so ostentatiously stupid and
venal as the Carroll of Simon's imagination, and so, once again,
the Sun subplot was not at all compelling to me. Also, it's almost
ridiculously telegraphed. We've learned that the overambitious
Templeton is already suspected of creating a Baltimore variant
of Janet Cooke's "Jimmy" (we've learned this thanks to a most
unnaturally perceptive city desk), and we also know that top
management just adores our sweater-vest-wearing Stephen Glass
and is giving him the opportunity to write a Pulitzer-bait
"Dickensian" series (I like the way Simon subverts the Dickens
meme by associating it with one of his villains) on a city
classroom. I have no idea what will happen to McNulty and
Bunk and Marlo and Proposition Joe. I have a very good idea
what will happen in the Baltimore Sun newsroom. But I'll let you
defend Simon from the charge of excessive obviousness.
It's a shame that Simon gets in the way of his own great work;
he's doing something very important here. I was reminded of this
by the discovery last week in a Washington house of the
decomposing bodies of four girls, who were not found by
neighbors, or the police, or the schools, or by child protection
agencies, but by marshals acting on behalf of a mortgage
company that was foreclosing on the property. How can this
horror happen in America? David Simon is one of the few
people asking this question.
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 2: Too Much Moralizing, Not Enough Omar
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 10:06 AM ET
Dear Jeff,
At the risk of making this a Slate dialogue that is mostly about
itself, let me just say a few more words about Simon's furious
response to my post last week. And those words are: He was
right. It was wrong for me to write about social conversations we
had at a mutual friend's wedding and book party. He had every
right to expect privacy when we talked and to be angry when I
turned the conversations into journalistic fodder.
OK, back to the show. There was something off about the
second episode, but I don't think it's the Sun subplot. The
conniving ascent of the Cooke/Glass fabulist, egged on by the
two evil editors, doesn't bother me the way it bothers you. I
agree that it's obvious—I don't think the Sun editor needed both
96/124
horns and a pitchfork—but it's not boring. In fact, my favorite
part of the episode is the bull session in the Sun's loading dock.
How could you not crack up at Gus' riff about the mother of four
who died from an allergic reaction to blue crabs: "Ever notice
how 'mother of four' is always catching hell? Murder. Hit and
run. Burned up in row house fire. Swindled by bigamists." I'm
giggling just typing it. "Swindled by bigamists"—give that
writer an Emmy!
So, it's not the newsroom that's confounding me. No, I think the
problem is that The Wire has gotten preachy. The show has
always had a didactic streak, but a relatively subtle one. For all
that Simon is seething with righteous anger, he never let that
overwhelm the show. It was a backbeat. He let the story and the
characters do the work, and didn't lay the lessons on thick. Like
the great journalist that he is, he showed, he didn't tell. He and
his colleagues understood that no "the game is rigged" speech
could ever mean one-fiftieth as much as, say, the momentary
shot of Dukie selling drugs at the end of Season 4.
But the first two episodes of this season repeatedly pause—stop
dead—for heavy-handed moralizing. It didn't bother me in
Episode 1—I figured they were just breaking us in—but now I'm
getting worried. Just checking my notes from Episode 2, I see:
1. The hooker's overwrought speech about her addiction
2. Lester's majestic peroration about the importance of the Clay
Davis case
3. Steve Earle's exhortation to Bubbs, urging him to stop bottling
up his sorrow about Sherrod and live again
4. The face-off between Gus and the Sun's editor about their
schools series—the editor pompous, Gus biting, both
sermonizing
5. Michael's conscience-ridden argument with Chris and Snoop
about killing a guy who may have insulted Marlo
6. Bunk, Lester, and Jimmy's chorus about the devaluation of
black men's lives ("You can go a long way in this country killing
black folk.")
In every one of these scenes, The Wire's characters are just a bit
too grandiloquent, their dialogue a shade too portentous. Maybe
because this is the final season, Simon and Ed Burns don't want
to leave anything unsaid, but they're saying too much.
Two episodes and counting without Omar! On the upside, Avon
Barksdale is back, and flashing that awesome West Baltimore
"W" hand signal. We need one of those—a three-finger "S"—for
Slate.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
David
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 2: Give Me More Clay Davis!
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 11:01 AM ET
Dear David,
I appreciate your deep morals, I really do. But still: Your post
was fairly inoffensive and had the benefit of being true. So, no
guilt!
Like you, I love the expression "swindled by bigamists." David
Simon and his writers love words, and I love them for loving
words. That said, I thought the scene in which this marvelous
line was embedded, on the loading dock, was forced and
ostentatious and heavy-handed. Why not just have St. City
Editor say, "Man, Baltimore hacks are so witty and hard-boiled
and yet they have hearts of gold, all except that yuppie shit who
is obviously going to Jayson Blair our newspaper half to death."
I was so busy hating the Baltimore Sun story line that I neglected
to notice what you picked up: that it's not only the reporters who
are ardently speechifying. I don't mind speeches—give me more
Clay Davis any day! It's the moralizing that's getting me. Why
do they have to tell us that the lives of black men are cast away
by our society? Isn't that the whole point of this show? We get it.
We've been watching for years.
These occasional bumps in the writing are not so noticeable in
most cases because the acting is so good—otherworldly good.
Have you noticed that Isiah Whitlock Jr., as the febrile and
corrupt Clay Davis, is a genius? One question I'm always left
with after an episode of The Wire is this: Where will these
brilliant African-Americans actors go when The Wire is
finished? Maybe this is why David Simon is so pissed—he
knows that Hollywood hasn't figured out how to showcase large
quantities of black talent and fears for the careers of his cast. I
can't think of another cast of such astonishingly good unknown
actors, except maybe for The Sopranos—though if you watch
Goodfellas carefully, you'll see that they're all there. (Weirdly,
Isiah Whitlock Jr. was also in Goodfellas.) So, let's have a
moment of appreciation for Lance Reddick, who plays Cedric
Daniels; and our mutual favorite, Wendell Pierce, who plays
Bunk; and, of course, Clarke Peters, who plays Lester Freamon;
and Andre Royo as Bubbles; and Jamie Hector as Marlo
Stanfield; and, for his voice alone, Anwan Glover as Slim
Charles. The list goes on and on. Every so often, the writing
fails, but the cast never does.
97/124
As Sarah Silverman says, I have a dream, too: My dream is that
some savvy Shakespeare company hires, en masse, the cast of
The Wire for what would be just a thrilling Julius Caesar. Wood
Harris, who plays Avon Barksdale, has already appeared in
Troilus and Cressida. Just imagine him as Brutus.
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 2: Templeton Needs a Big Story and McNulty's Selling One
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 1:30 PM ET
David,
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 2: Where Is Simon Going With the Parallel Fraud Plots?
It's not only actors on The Wire who have a tendency to show up
in dispiriting commercials: The guy who played Agent Harris on
The Sopranos now appears as a chef in a Campbell Soup
commercial, and—if you don't mind me saying so—looks like a
fuckwad.
Jeff,
And speaking of fuck, you're right, that scene between Bunk and
Jimmy possesses Raging Bull-quality fuckedness. (Have you
ever seen the Flintstones version? Hysterical.)
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 11:49 AM ET
One of the weirdest moments of my Wire offseason was when I
spotted Clay Davis—I mean Isiah Whitlock Jr.—playing a goofy
dad in a Verizon cell phone commercial. Much to my
disappointment, his several lines didn't include his trademark
"sheee-it." (Maybe he could do late-night toilet paper spots
instead?) And he's not the only one of The Wire's great black
actors who's moonlighting to make ends meet: Lance "Cedric
Daniels" Reddick brightened my NFL watching this year by
showing up as the new face of Cadillac.
I share your amazement at the concentration of acting talent on
The Wire, and your concern about what will happen to all these
great black actors now that the show is ending. I'm hoping that
they get to cash in on their talent the way Idris Elba (Stringer
Bell) has since his character got murdered at the end of Season
3. But I fear you're right that Hollywood isn't going to figure out
a way to employ idiosyncratic geniuses like Felicia "Snoop"
Pearson, Michael K. Williams, and Anwan Glover as anything
but "Street Thug #3" in crime dramas.
Where are Simon & Co. going with the parallel fraud plots?
We've got the newsroom con artist Scott fabricating a sob-story
13-year-old cripple to advance his own career. And now Jimmy
McNulty is fabricating a serial killer to … do what exactly?
Seeing it for a second time, it occurs to me that the final minutes
of the episode, when Jimmy turns an accidental death into a
homicide while Bunk observes in horror, is a grim echo of that
Season 1 scene when Jimmy and Bunk solve a murder with
nothing but gestures and 38 utterances of the word "fuck."
Watch the "fuck" scene again: It is one of the Wire's all-time
great moments.
David
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Where are Simon & Co. going with the parallel fraud plots? It
seems to me that he'll have to merge them. Stephen Glass needs
a big story, and McNulty's selling one. I can't imagine McNulty
having trouble closing the deal; Scott is dying for the story that
gets him to the promised land of the Washington Post metro
section. Ordinarily, I'd predict that Scott gets chewed up in the
process, but isn't David Simon's main complaint against his onetime bosses at the Sun that they protected a Pulitzer-bound
fabricator, rather than expose him? I feel like I've read about this
complaint of his a dozen times already.
You've noticed, of course, that more people write about The
Wire than actually watch it? The magazine articles never stop
coming.
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 2: Avon Returns
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008, at 2:48 PM ET
Jeff,
I know what you mean about the endless Wire commentary. I'm
having a hard time separating what I see on the show from what
I read in the papers (and magazines, and blogs). Sometimes
that's because what I'm seeing on the show is what I am reading
in the papers. During the episode last night, it's-hard-to-be-a-
98/124
saint-in-the-city editor Gus Haynes savages the Sun editor's idea
for a public schools expose:
[If] you want to look at who these kids really
are, you have to look at the parenting or lack
of it in the city, the drug culture, the
economics of these neighborhoods. … It's like
you're up on the corner of a roof and you're
showing some people how a couple shingles
came loose. Meanwhile, a hurricane wrecked
the rest of the damn house.
This morning, I read the Columbia Journalism Review's opus
about Simon's war with Marimow and Carroll and saw this quote
from Simon:
You can carve off a symptom and talk about
how bad drugs are, and you can blame the
police department for fucking up the drug war,
but that's kind of like coming up to a house hit
by a hurricane and making a lot of voluminous
notes about the fact that some roof tiles are off.
It's a great metaphor, incidentally.
Let me just return to my other favorite moment in last night's
episode: the visiting-room negotiation between Avon and Marlo.
It plays a great trick by making us root for the heartless murderer
Avon because he's putting one over on the even-more-despicable
Marlo. (That kind of sympathy manipulation is a specialty of
The Wire. See also: Prop Joe, Omar, Bodie …) Also, how great
was the final moment of chitchat between them, when Avon,
hungry for details about the street, asks: "What about you, how
you been?" And Marlo answers with a shrug: "You know. The
game is the game." That's what I'm going to start saying
whenever anyone asks me about my job.
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 3: Whiplashed by Jimmy McNulty's Fall
Posted Monday, January 21, 2008, at 6:31 AM ET
this season. We're not in Bold and the Beautiful territory—no
one has suddenly remembered that she's actually a lesbian incest
victim—but McNulty, Marlo, and Clay Davis have all become
very different men, very fast. Sen. Davis, who has always
projected omnicompetence in his sleazy dealings, is
uncharacteristically panicky as the grand jury investigation
tightens around him. Marlo, who's terrifying because of his total
lack of affect, cracked this week, revealing an unexpected
anxiety about his money.
And Jimmy McNulty—well, what to say about Jimmy's extreme
makeover? In this episode, Jimmy embellishes his serial-killer
fabrication, inventing—over Bunk's fierce objections and with
the help of a flask of Jameson's—a murderer who targets
homeless men and marks his victims with red ribbons.* Jimmy
plants evidence, tampers with a corpse, and forges documents,
drinking and screwing blondes in the few minutes he's not
inventing crimes. I'm whiplashed by Jimmy's fall: We've always
known that his sweet domesticity couldn't last, but don't you
think this nose dive is too much, too quickly?
As for the serial-killer plot itself, I'm ambivalent. It seems a little
far-fetched to imagine that Jimmy and ultimate good cop Lester
could betray the job so easily. On the other hand, Simon proved
in Season 3 that he could take an outlandish premise and make it
enthralling. The drug-legalization zone of Hamsterdam, the great
idea of Season 3, was as far-fetched as Jimmy's fake serial killer,
and Simon made it utterly gripping and persuasive. Maybe he
will do it again this year.
What I loved most in this episode was its variations on the theme
of escape, or rather, the impossibility of it. The scene of Marlo,
fish out of water, trying to get his money at the Antilles bank
reminded me of Season 4's most powerful moment, when Bunny
took the kids to a fancy downtown restaurant and they panicked.
Then there was Omar's brief fling with beach life at the end of
the episode, another reminder that the game will keep sucking
you back in. And there was Michael and Dukie's glorious day
out at the amusement park, which ends with Michael in trouble
for leaving the corner. Some of the best scenes in The Sopranos
were when the insular characters encountered the outside
world—Vito hiding out in the New Hampshire B&B, Paulie and
Chrisopher lost in the snowy pine barrens. The Wire too
understands the power of claustrophobia, the terrible difficulty
of leaving the familiar.
As for the newspaper subplot, the less said, the better. (I wish I
had a dollar for every time someone said, "do more with less"
this season—I could afford to take the Sun buyout.)
Dear Jeff,
David
Maybe it was just that melodramatically tight closing shot of
Omar—thank God! Omar—distraught over Butchie's death, but I
thought there was a slight telenovela feel to Episode 3. Or
maybe it is the too-fast way the show has altered its characters
Correction, Jan. 22, 2008: The article originally stated that
McNulty relied on the help of Jim Beam. (Return to the
corrected sentence.)
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
99/124
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 3: Does the Baltimore Sun Not Have a Web Site?
Posted Monday, January 21, 2008, at 10:35 AM ET
Dear David,
Since you won't take on the newspaper subplot, let me.
But before I do, let me attach myself to your comments re: the
terrible difficulty of leaving the familiar. There is one other
Sopranos analogy here, in this case, having to do with Adriana's
disappearance. You'll recall a meeting at the offices of the FBI,
when one of the agents suggests that Adriana might have not, in
fact, been murdered but had instead taken off to China. This
suggestion was met by looks of absolute incredulity from her
colleagues. It was an absurd notion, the idea that Adriana had the
will, knowledge, and wherewithal to escape North Jersey. I
thought of this scene while watching Marlo at the bank. Here is
the lion out of his den and, without any defenses, just a shmuck
who can't speak French (which is also an apt description of me).
It's a useful reminder of the completely circumscribed lives these
characters lead, though I do prefer to take my Marlo straight up
and affectless—I like my gangsters cold. What next? Scenes of
Snoop playing with her American Girl collection?
Unlike you (presumably, since your tight-lippedness on the
matter of the Baltimore Sun has me guessing just a bit), I found
the newsroom scene moving, perhaps because I had just read
about the latest coup at the formerly great L.A. Times; the
"fellows" from Chicago—as David Simon calls them in his latest
elegy to the lost world of the Sun papers—have taken to
murdering their own now, firing a corporate-shill editor who
wouldn't shill enough, apparently refusing to carry out more
newsroom head-chopping during the labor-intensive presidential
campaign.
That scene in the newsroom was near perfect because it had the
power of truth, right down to the moment when the patrician
executive editor, Whiting, forces his sweaty, ferretish managing
editor, Klebanow (sounds like …), to deliver the actual bad
news. How can your heart not break for 40- and 50-year-old
reporters, with no discernible skills other than the ability to work
the phones, who are cast adrift by a newspaper company that
still makes barrels of money?
The problem, of course, is that these realistic scenes of
newsroom life circa 2008 are undermined by deeply unrealistic
scenes of newsroom life circa never. In other words, why does
Roger Twigg, the discarded police reporter, have to be so
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
encyclopedically perfect? Why does Scott, the unpleasant
upstart, have to be so ostentatiously Glass-ian (or Blair-ian)?
And why is there no reference whatsoever to the newspaper's
Web site? Simon makes it clear in his Washington Post Outlook
piece that he neither knows very much nor cares very much
about the Web, but doesn't reality demand that we see the
newsroom of the Sun feeding the beast? All this talk of finals
and double dots is so archaic. Are you telling me that the cub
reporter, Alma Gutierrez, would run all over the city looking for
an early edition of the paper before checking to see how her
story was played on the Web? I just looked—the Baltimore Sun
actually does have a Web site.
All this raises a larger question: Just how good was the Sun in
David Simon's day? Was the golden age really so golden? I'm
not equipped to answer this question. Perhaps there's someone
out there who can.
Best,
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: David Plotz
Subject: The Skeleton in Daniels' Closet
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 7:50 AM ET
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for figuring out why Alma's early-edition odyssey
bugged me so much! A real Alma wouldn't even have woken up
early to see her story. She would have checked the Web site at
midnight the night before, when the paper went live (and then
immediately updated her Facebook status to read "Alma
Gutierrez is getting screwed by her editors," and Twittered same
to 135 friends). Heck, the single act of her logging onto the free
Sun Web site rather than schlepping out to buy the paper would
have explained more about the newspaper crisis than 17 closeups of Whiting's I'm-an-asshole suspenders ever could.
It's weird that The Wire clings to a 1999 vision of the
newspaper—no e-mail, no texting, barely even cell phones—
when it's so incredibly au courant about the practices of drug
dealers. According to one of the 18 zillion Wire articles from the
past couple of weeks (though I can't remember which one), New
York gangbangers actually watch the show for tips on how to
avoid cell-phone wiretaps and other popo surveillance.
Its newspaper Luddism gives me another thought: The Wire is in
many ways the useful counterpoint to another cultic TV show
that began around the same time, 24. In 24, conspiracies are
100/124
everywhere and institutions are corrupt, but technology is
omnipotent and the individual can triumph. In The Wire,
conspiracies are everywhere and institutions are corrupt, but
technology always betrays us, and the individual can never
triumph. All anyone can hope for is sheltered, private happiness.
Needless to say, I find The Wire much truer to the world I live
in. (Hmm, does this help explain why 24 is revered by
Republicans and The Wire by Democrats? I have to think about
that.)
I'm not a newspaper guy, and I lack the profound emotional
connection to them that drives Simon. So, I'm skeptical about
this newspaper nostalgia. Our mutual friend and Slate media
critic Jack Shafer has explained that the newspaper glory
years—1950s through the '80s, right Jack?—were anomalous, a
period of artificially high profits that allowed papers to overstaff,
throw resources into huge projects, and avoid the exigencies that
plague most competitive businesses. So, maybe what's
happening now isn't a rape, but a long overdue correction. And
maybe it's not true that smaller newspapers mean less
journalism—or even less great journalism. Web journalism is
thriving. So is magazine journalism. Public radio is bigger and
better than ever. It's true that they're not the same as newspaper
journalism. Certain wonderful kinds of newspaper stories don't
get done anymore. On the other hand, it doesn't mean they're
worse. I like Thomas Edsall even more as a blogger and political
analyst at the Huffington Post than I did when he was a
campaign-finance reporter for the Washington Post.
Now you've made me talk about all the newspaper stuff I vowed
to avoid! Let's get back to the show. I've forgotten: What was it
that Cedric Daniels did wrong, deep in his past? (It's the All the
King's Men subplot: Everyone, even Saint Cedric, is dirty: "Man
is conceived in sin and born in corruption.")
done wrong; I think the allegation dates to when he ran
McNulty's squad. Now you're forcing me to watch all of the first
season again.
I would like to get back to Snoop and Omar and Butchie (what a
man, huh?—though they should have tried water-boarding; it's
quite effective, according to many Republicans), but I have to
say this, in light of the firing of the editor of the Los Angeles
Times: I will not be criticizing David Simon's Baltimore Sun plot
today. The truth is, the battle between David Simon and the
Tribune Company is the battle between the Forces of Good and
the Forces of Evil. The Forces of Good whine a lot, but I'll take
David Simon's whining over corporate pillaging, gladly. There's
an astonishing quote today from David Hiller, the publisher of
the L.A. Times, who fired the editor (who—and this shows you
how bad things have gotten—was the corporate lackey put into
the editorship after the previous editors were shit-canned for
standing up for their newsroom) and who will be held
responsible by God for the gutting of a great American
newspaper. Hiller asked, "Can you solve the newspaper
industry's problems by spending more? It's an attractive theory,
but it doesn't work."
Of course it doesn't. Spending more money to gather more news
and hire better reporters couldn't possibly help the newspaper
industry, could it?
What a barbarian. David Hiller is the Marlo Stanfield of daily
journalism.
Jeff
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 3: Would Somebody Please Give Daniels a Sandwich?
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 3: I Will Not Be Criticizing the Baltimore Sun Plot Today
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 11:38 AM ET
Dear David,
Sorry, I don't see the All the King's Men subplot. Cedric Daniels
is the personification of rectitude. I like the character, but he
always struck me as one of David Simon's less complicated
creations. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but this episode of
alleged corruption buried in Daniels' past seems to be a bit of a
red herring. I can't even remember what it was he's said to have
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 12:34 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
One big difference: Marlo is a West Baltimore gangster trying to
muscle in on the East Side, while Hiller is an East Side tough
trying to muscle in on the West Side. (Also, I suspect that Hiller
would be perfectly comfortable talking up a French-speaking
bank clerk.)
Nothing more from me today about The Wire and the state of
newspaper journalism. I'm going to leave that to my colleague,
Slate media critic Jack Shafer. I mentioned Jack's views on
101/124
newspaper nostalgia in my last entry, and I'm happy to report
that he is going to write a piece today about David Simon's
critique of the newspaper business. Since Jack is so much
smarter than I am about this subject (and most others, for that
matter), I'll read his piece to find out what I really should think.
I agree that Daniels is one of The Wire's thinner creations.
(Thinner in all ways: His cadaverous frame, which is meant to
suggest that rectitude you're talking about, mostly makes me
think: "Someone give that man a sandwich.") That said, his
mysterious ugly past is what makes him more than just a stick
figure. Like Judge Irwin, he is haunted by a sin that could
destroy him. At the same time, that sin—and the deep shame he
feels about it—may be what turned him into the upright cop he
has become. The Wire is brilliant in giving us characters who sin
and overcome it, or rather, harness it to redeem themselves:
Cutty, Carver, Daniels, to name a few. And they are all the more
persuasive because they stand next to the weaker men, such as
Herc, who refuse to own their sins.
Later,
D
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 3: Who Doesn't Like a Blind Bartender?
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 4:52 PM ET
Dear David,
The people of America—including the .00003 percent who
watch The Wire—can rest easy now that Jack Shafer is going to
weigh in on Simon. Prediction: Jack pisses him off.
This means, I suppose, that we can go back to talking about the
show next week. Which is a relief, of course. A thought struck
me not long ago, a dangerous one: Perhaps the weakness of the
Baltimore Sun subplot is not Simon's fault, but ours. And by
"ours," I mean all of us in journalism. Maybe we're just not that
interesting; David Simon can't make us interesting; David Milch
couldn't make us interesting; maybe even David Chase himself
couldn't make us interesting. Well, maybe he couldn't make me
interesting. You, he could build a show around.
An amendment to an earlier post: Alert reader (and Jack Shafer
acolyte) Ryan Grim points out that, though Butchie was not
water-boarded by Chris and Snoop, he was in fact "liquorboarded," before he was shot in the legs and then murdered.
Butchie's demise was unfortunate—who doesn't like a blind
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
bartender?— but at least it brings Omar back into our lives, and,
with any luck, Omar's return will set off all sorts of conflicts
between Marlo and Chris and Prop Joe and Slim Charles and
Cheese, all of whom are much more interesting than the sad-sack
denizens of the Sun newsroom. As Mitt Romney recently said,
"Woof woof."
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 4: Cheese Must Die!
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 10:29 AM ET
Dear David,
Cheese must die! I feel very strongly about this, which is why I
placed an exclamation point at the end of the previous sentence.
Also, Marlo and Chris, but to repair a tear in the moral universe,
Cheese must die, not only for betraying his uncle, Proposition
Joe Stewart, but for participating in what we assume was the
torture-murder of the man who invented the Swanson Hungry
Man TV dinner. You know, it's a damn shame that Method Man,
a stalwart of the remarkable Wu-Tang Clan, was cast as the most
unspeakable bastard on The Wire. I'll never listen to Enter the
Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) the same way. Not that I've listened to
it in 10 years, but you get the point. What next? The RZA as a
stoolie? (For the moment, he has my old job at The New Yorker.)
Sorry, back to the coldest execution scene this side of Abe
Vigoda. Actually, colder, because, really, did you care that much
about Tessio? Clemenza, yes, of course, but Tessio? I liked Abe
Vigoda (still alive! www.abevigoda.com) better in Fish, anyway.
That was an extraordinarily powerful scene, the martyrdom of
Prop Joe. "Close your eyes. It won't hurt none," Marlo said, and
my blood froze. It's true that Tom Hagen's "Can't do it, Sally"
marked one of the most unforgettable moments in The
Godfather, but Marlo seemed to actually embody the Angel of
Death. Prop Joe's murder also has a metaphorical power missing
from Tessio's demise. What we just saw, I think, was a David
Simon op-ed on the miseries of capitalism. The rising young
executive learns what he can from his elders and then kills them.
In corporate America, the murder victim is left alive, as opposed
to what happens in the New Day Co-Op (there's an organization
that just ceased to exist—I'll bet my lungs on that), but except
for that technical issue, it's the same thing.
I think we can spend all day unpacking the meaning of Prop
Joe's execution, but let me make one larger point: What we saw
102/124
in the undoing of Prop Joe was The Wire at its best. What we
saw in the Baltimore Sun subplot this time around was The Wire
at its worst. Prop Joe and Slim Charles and all the rest are
complicated people; it's too bad David Simon couldn't make the
newsroom similarly complicated. The editors of the Sun aren't
characters; they're walking indictments. The low moment came
when Klebanow warned Gus against cursing in the newsroom.
Ridiculous. I'm not saying that once or twice between John Peter
Zenger and now, some shmuck in some newsroom somewhere
warned a colleague about the use of foul language. But for fuck's
sake, that was the most unbelievable thing I've seen in The
Wire's five seasons.
ask me. And as you say, the no-cursing-in-the-newsroom speech
defied belief (though, even as I write that, I am betting we get email from at least one reporter who's been on the receiving end
of such a lecture from some newspaper-chain middle manager).
Jeff
Yours without profanity,
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 4: No Cursing in the Newsroom
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 11:01 AM ET
My favorite moment of the episode: when Prop Joe and Herc are
waiting around in lawyer Levy's office and Joe tells Herc that he
and Burrell attended high school together, back in the day (a
connection, incidentally, that is meant to foreshadow their
simultaneous downfalls). Prop Joe says of Burrell, in that
inimitable Jovian drawl: "Ervin was a year before me at Dunbar.
He was in the glee club."
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 4: Is My Intuition Growing Stronger, or Is The Wire Just
Getting More Obvious?
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 12:06 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
Dear David,
It's not just Prop Joe who got did this week. All the chunky old
veterans were kicked to the curb. Joe got a bullet in the brain.
Plus-size police commissioner Ervin Burrell got a plaque. And
spare-tired police reporter Roger Twigg got a final scoop and
one last byline. (Oh, and Hungry Man, who's not fat but is,
apparently, hungry, got it worst of all.) Each was a victim of the
octopuslike system that Simon believes is destroying America.
The younger, colder Marlo—the living embodiment of
conscienceless capitalism—sucks every bit of useful information
from Joe before corpsing him. The mayor who cares for nothing
but his own political ambition chops down Burrell, but not for
any principled, improve-the-city purpose. Toolish editors
Whiting and Klebanow force Twigg to quit, simply to serve their
rapacious corporate masters.
(I also think it's sly that the fat old-timers are replaced by the
lean-and-hungry: Marlo has never consumed anything but a
lollipop on the screen. And as I wrote last week, Burrell's heirapparent Daniels suffers from an acute case of manorexia.)
I totally agree about the power of the Prop Joe-Marlo drama.
And I love watching Carver's frustration over the disintegration
of his department, at the very moment his career is taking off.
But I continue to puzzle over practically everything else. The
fake serial killer story line is increasingly operatic and
mannered: What did you make of that Hieronymous Bosch
spectacle in the homeless encampment? A bit too much, if you
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Yes, that glee-club line was great. You remind me of
something—it was immediately clear to me that Marlo and Herc
were put in the same room, Levy's waiting room (speaking of
Levy, where's Abe Foxman when you need him?), for a reason.
Don't you think Herc is going to use his proximity to Levy to try
to bring down Marlo? Is my superpower of intuition growing
even greater, or is The Wire just becoming more obvious? Prop
Joe's demise, in retrospect, was foreshadowed a million different
ways. His murder was still a powerful and elegiac moment, but
we were clearly meant to see it coming.
Interesting point about Burrell, though I'm not sure the analogy
sustains itself. Unlike the heroin distributor Prop Joe, Chief
Burrell deserved his fate. And Cedric Daniels is not the
bureaucratic equivalent of Marlo Stanfield. Still, you make a
compelling point about heartlessness. The world of The Wire
often reminds me of a keen observation of Rabbi Abraham
Joshua Heschel, who once wrote, in lamenting the moral
condition of modern man, "Living in fear he thinks that the
ambush is the normal dwelling place of all men." Welcome to
David Simon's Baltimore.
That said, I thought last night's tour of the homeless demimonde
was a bit ripe. And McNulty's shenanigans are becoming more
and more unbelievable. It's only a matter of time before the
103/124
scheming reporter Templeton and the wackadoo McNulty marry
their ambitions, don't you think?
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 4: Copy Desks: Indispensable in Real Life, Not Thrilling on TV
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 4:59 PM ET
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 4: Marlo Isn't the Bagels-in-the-Boardroom Type
Yes, thank God for Wire watchers. They've called us out a
couple of times.
Dear Jeff,
So far, only two reporters who've been chastised for profanity?
Sort of proves our point. Maybe we should get this up on
Romenesko and see what comes in over the transom there.
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 2:40 PM ET
Sure enough, within five minutes of my last entry going live, I
received e-mails from two reporters who've been chastised for
their excessive profanity. One of them, York Daily Record
columnist Mike Argento, writes, "An editor pulled me into a
conference room and gave me a little lecture about swearing in
the newsroom, that one of the editorial assistants, who was
religious, complained mostly about taking the Lord's name in
vain. Others also received the talk. Didn't do any fucking good."
Do I think Herc is going to help bring down Marlo? No chance.
It's Marlo's cash that's keeping Herc in suits and bottled beer.
And if there's anything we've learned about him in the past few
seasons, it's that he's too stupid and amoral to do anything right.
You know what I'm going to miss most now that Prop Joe's
dead? The co-op meetings. (I'm guessing that Marlo is not going
to be a bagels-in-the-boardroom kind of drug lord.) Ever since
Stringer Bell's funeral home assemblies back in Season 3, the
drug dealer councils have been The Wire's funniest scenes,
hilariously juxtaposing the aspiration for managerial order with
the reality of criminal violence. Come to think of it, wasn't the
best scene in The Untouchables the board meeting when Al
Capone beats one of his lieutenants to death with a baseball bat?
There's something inherently compelling about the combination
of crime and bureaucracy (which is also why that Wannsee
conference movie was so gripping, too). The choice line from
the final co-op meeting comes from titty bar owner Fatface Rick,
advising his fellow hoods to: "Buy you some property, hold on
until the white people show up, and make a killing."
We're clearly not watching The Wire as carefully as our readers.
Several wrote me to point out that the goateed guy boozing in
the homeless encampment was Johnny "Fifty," Ziggy's friend
from Season 2, who helped "misplace" cargo on the docks. He
must have lost his union card after the cops busted Sobotka's
fraud operation.
David
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
On Herc, you're forgetting that Marlo got him fired, by stealing
the surveillance camera. I'm not suggesting that Herc would be
motivated by selfless idealism to trap Marlo; revenge is enough
to get him going. Speaking of The Untouchables, did you notice
the obvious nod in Capone's direction during the final meeting
between Chief Burrell and Cedric Daniels? The chief picked up
his golf club and started smacking his palm with it, just to the
east of Daniels' head. I don't mind this at all, nor do I mind the
obvious Godfather echo in the killing of Prop Joe. What I mind
is the Schoolhouse Rock homage every time we visit the Sun
newsroom. Copy desks are indispensable in real life, but they are
not exactly thrilling on HBO. I have a premonition that this is
only going to get worse as the season goes on.
So, have you ever been dissed by the Washington Post?
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 4: How Does Omar Find So Many Perfect Observation Posts?
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008, at 5:46 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
Not just two—I've now heard from four potty-mouthed
journalists who were slapped by bosses. Let's see if Romenesko
turns up more.
My wife, Hanna Rosin, chastises me for pooh-poohing your idea
that Herc will take down Marlo: She observes that "one thing
that happens predictably this season is that everyone switches
places: McNulty trades with Bubbles (one addict up, another
104/124
down); Kima becomes the baby-sitter; Lester goes dirty; Carver
switches on a dime from protector to snitch."
We haven't talked about Omar's return. First of all, was that
Michael he saw when he was spying from the window? Second,
how does Omar find so many perfect observation posts? Isn't
that a little convenient? (Remember how he also had a window
on Marlo's secret hideout?) And, finally, I want to call out
Omar's ambush of Slim Charles, which was a thrilling scene.
(Partly because it was filmed as if by a security camera, as Fray
poster Isonomist notes.) Slim Charles' brush with death
reminded me of a panel I moderated six months ago at a D.C.
film festival. Anwan Glover, who plays Slim Charles and is a
D.C. go-go star, was one of the panelists. He had that week
finished filming Episode 4. He wouldn't reveal anything about
the season's plot, but he did say that his character was still alive.
Now that we've seen it, I realize he must have been mighty
pleased to have gotten through the episode alive—especially
when he learned what had happened to fellow cast member
Robert Chew.
I've never been dissed by the Washington Post, because I was
never good enough to get in the door for an interview. (And then
Hanna worked there, so I could blame their lack of interest in me
on their nepotism rules.)
Talk to you next week,
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 5: Omar Goes Too Far
Updated Monday, February 4, 2008, at 10:38 AM ET
Jeff,
So Omar is Batman now? He can dodge a hail of bullets, then fly
off a fifth-story balcony, and slip away? The Wire has always
allowed itself a little magical realism when it comes to Omar.
Alone of the show's characters, he's allowed to exist outside the
normal laws of space and time. We've seen that in small ways
(last season's impossible, catbird-seat observation post) and large
(his hilarious gunslinger duel with Brother Mouzone in Season
3). It's as though David Simon has decided, perhaps as a present
to Omar's many fans, to suspend the show's otherwise ruthless
realism when he walks on camera. That said, I fear the balcony
escape stretches the Omar Rules too far.
Jimmy's too-fast decline and my frustration over the serial-killer
fabrication, but it's something else about him that's troubling me:
The show drags whenever Dominic West is on the screen. He
lacks the unexpected, living, three-dimensionality of practically
everyone else on The Wire—from Bunk to Carcetti to Marlo to
Dukie. West's McNulty is a dead weight, and I think this season
is suffering in direct proportion to the amount of time he spends
on the screen. (Also, my friend Jessica Lazar asks a great
question: If McNulty is such a drunken wreck, why does always
he look so natty? He dresses dandier and dandier every episode.)
Let me return to another point I made a few weeks ago, about
this season's over-preachiness. There was a stark example of that
this week, in the heartbreaking scene between Cutty and Dukie.
Having failed as a boxer, Dukie is finally realizing that he's not
made for the streets, that he'll never have it in him to fight. (Boy,
did I identify with him at that moment!) Cutty gently encourages
him, saying that he has the intelligence to make something of
himself. Dukie pleads, "How do you get from here to the rest of
the world?" And Cutty answers, "I wish I knew." It's a beautiful
scene, a perfect scene. But for reasons inexplicable, it continues.
Dukie and Cutty are shot from behind as they leave the warm
safety of the gym and enter the dark city. As they walk, they
conduct a cliched, obvious version of the conversation they have
already had. ("All I got is hopes and wishes …") Not for the first
time this season, I muttered, "They need an editor!"
Enough griping. Here are some favorite moments for this week.
When Chris asks Marlo how Vondas took the news of Prop Joe's
death, Marlo deadpans, "The man overcame his grief." Norman
cautions the mayor not to celebrate the Clay Davis indictment:
"You don't dance on Clay's grave unless you are sure the
motherfucker's dead." And as for Davis himself—what a show!
His talk-radio spiel was a hypnotizing monologue, and he also
uttered the longest "sheeeeeee-it" in the history of The Wire.
Finally, big ups to you, for predicting both that Herc would
betray Marlo and that McNulty and Templeton would merge
their crazy fabrications. Also kudos to David Simon, who proved
both of us wrong about newsroom cursing. Both of us doubted
that any journalist had ever been chastised by a boss for
excessive profanity, but we invited our colleagues to correct us.
During the week, Romenesko's Letters column and my inbox
crammed with stories from journalists who had been rebuked for
their dirty mouths. I also liked all the letters celebrating the
importance of vulgarity to the newsroom. I particularly
recommend this story, whose punch line is, "Thanks, sheriff.
Now I owe you TWO blow jobs."
David
I can explain in one word why this episode disappointed me so
much: McNulty. I've already mentioned my puzzlement over
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
105/124
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 5: I Called Marlo
Posted Monday, February 4, 2008, at 11:22 AM ET
Dear David,
I'll forgive David Simon the Flying Omar, and I'll forgive him
McNulty's unexplained and uninteresting descent into
professional and personal lunacy, but I won't forgive him for
making me watch Shattered Glass again. Don't get me wrong—
it was a good movie about a bad ex-friend of mine (and, as a
bonus, the excellent Chloë Sevigny played your excellent wife).
But I'm bored by stories of pathological fabricators, not because
they don't exist (though I doubt they exist in numbers—ready,
set, go: Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Mike Finkel, and … who
else, exactly?) but because they don't tell us much about the
ailments of modern journalism. This was the promise of the fifth
season of The Wire, that David Simon would take apart
journalism the way he took apart public education and the
decaying big-city economy. We were meant to be getting a
sophisticated look at the demise of daily journalism, besieged by
the Internet and by venal media companies. Well, what we've
got is a newspaper edited by a pair of impossibly shmucky
editors who seem, in 2008, unaware of the existence of the
World Wide Web and who have in their employ a reporter who
is doing something no fabricator, to the best of my knowledge,
has ever done: manufacturing information about an ongoing
homicide investigation. Put aside, please, the fact that said
investigation is a sham as well; the reporter, Templeton, doesn't
know that. Is this what David Simon really wants his viewers to
believe happens at major newspapers? Is he that blinded by hate
for the Baltimore Sun?
As you can tell, I am, like you, dispirited by the McNulty
subplot, though I don't think it has quite gone off the rails yet.
There were a couple of redeeming moments in this episode—for
instance, the look on McNulty's face when he realized that
Templeton was scamming the bosses at the Sun in much the
same way that he was scamming his own at homicide. But most
of the time, I thought I was watching CSI: Baltimore. That is to
say, when I didn't think I was watching Schoolhouse Rock again.
What's all this talk about gerunds? Do you know actual editors
who talk this way? The cops on The Wire talk like cops (best
line of the night: Bunk accusing McNulty of being "nut deep in
random pussy"), so why can't the editors sound like editors?
None of the editors I've worked with, including the quietly
persnickety David Plotz, would ever criticize me for the
inappropriate use of gerunds. And not only because I've got a
Ph.D. in gerundology.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
There was one great, true moment in the newsroom, by the way,
great not only because it was fleeting and subtle, but because it
got at something real about journalism, which is that we miss
much of what happens in the world. You'll recall the moment
when Alma is running down the list of homicides and mentions a
"Joseph Stewart," shot in his dining room? Gus tells her to give
him two paragraphs on each killing, and off she goes.
Baltimore's most important drug dealer, murdered, and he gets
two grafs, because his name rings no bells. That's journalism.
By the way, I called Marlo's cell phone: (410) 915-0909. I was
hoping someone would answer so I could test my bad Greek
accent, but there's no service on the line.
Best,
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 5: An Obit for Hungry Man
Posted Monday, February 4, 2008, at 3:30 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
That's disappointing about Marlo's phone. I was hoping they
would use the number for opportunistic Wire marketing, selling
ringtones from Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover's Backyard Band
and vintage copies of the Baltimore Sun, from back when David
Simon was still working there.
Gus and Alma's exchange about Joseph Stewart was wonderful.
In fact, it may have been even better than either of us noticed.
Reader Joshua Levine writes in an e-mail that "one of the other
four (?) names [Alma] cited was 'Hungerford,' who she said was
found in some building off an alleyway (or something like that).
That had to be Hungry Man, so Alma et al. were missing out on
more than just who Prop Joe was." (Levine isn't certain about the
exact line, and I don't have my DVD at the office to check the
quote, so I hope some reader will write in with the correct
dialogue.)
This is a random train of thought: Over the past five seasons,
The Wire has shown us schools, drug dealers, politicians, unions,
cops, and a newspaper. But it occurs to me, as we near its finish,
that it has never really shown us young black men at work. It has
brilliantly captured the no-choice lives of the young street
dealers and the way in which the smartest and most ruthless of
them make a career from drugs. But The Wire has never
presented the alternative path. Many young black men in
Baltimore (or Washington, or Chicago, or wherever) end up in
106/124
crime, for lack of education, skills, and opportunity. But most of
them don't. The unemployment rate for teenage black males—
The Wire demographic—is an appallingly high 40 percent, but
that still means 60 percent of them are employed. Among the
poorest black teenagers, some join the Army, some work fast
food or retail, some learn trades, some go on to college and
professional careers. (And a few make it as cops: Bunk and
Bunny Colvin were ghetto kids who worked their way out
through the department.) Ignoring the working world of black
men means The Wire shorts a key and tragic point about
American life. The lives of the dealers are grim, but the lives of
the working poor may be sadder still. There's little glamour
serving chicken on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at Popeyes, and
it's hard (though perhaps not impossible) to make a career selling
sneakers at Foot Locker. The world shuts out the young men
who choose to go straight, just as it shuts out those who choose
to sling heroin. Only once has The Wire watched a black man try
to enter the noncriminal job market: In Season 3, Cutty finds
under-the-table work as a landscaper; in Season 4, he briefly
dabbles in the growth industry of truancy enforcement. I wish
The Wire had given us a few more young men trying to make it
outside of crime, and let us see the bleakness of their world, too.
David
Jack Kelley as a worthy addition. She also corrects my earlier
assertion that no fabricator had ever interfered in an ongoing
criminal investigation. Emily writes, "Jayson Blair came down
to DC in the middle of the sniper shootings and started making
stuff up about the investigation. ... The prosecutors ended up
having a press conference to denounce one Blair story as a total
lie, but because they refused to say what was actually going on
inside their office, the Times, for a time, took it as confirmation
of Blair's superpowers."
I want to thank Emily for correcting my mistakes so promptly
(does she do that to you, too?). She also makes an interesting
point about what could be Templeton's undoing: "Don't you
think that Templeton laid his own trap when he used the name of
a random homeless guy as the terrified homeless father of four?"
Yes, using the name of an actual live person for a fictional
character did seem dumb. On the other hand, do we really think
that Templeton will get caught? Hasn't David Simon made it
abundantly clear that evil has triumphed at the Baltimore Sun?
Templeton will probably end up winning the Pulitzer.
By the way, David, I've noticed very little commentary from you
of late on the Sun subplot. Do you secretly love it and not want
to share that fact with me?
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 5: What, If Anything, Will Be Templeton's Undoing?
Posted Monday, February 4, 2008, at 5:11 PM ET
Dear David,
Excellent point. And very liberal. It is true most young black
men in the inner city do not sling drugs, even when the
opportunity avails itself, and even when the economic rationale
for doing so is overwhelming. There is, as you point out, a whole
other world of bleakness, of black men who stay out of the drug
trade but find themselves in dead-end jobs at Popeyes and Foot
Locker. But here's another point: Many black men, even some
who were raised in conditions of West Baltimore poverty and
taught by indifferent teachers in crappy schools, wind up not
merely managing a Popeyes but managing mutual funds at T.
Rowe Price on the Inner Harbor or practicing medicine at Johns
Hopkins. The Wire is meant to dramatize the inner city, and we
can't fault it for its tight focus, but some things are left out.
Taken in isolation, The Wire suggests that life in black America
is unrelievedly grim. For many people, it is, but for many others,
it simply isn't.
Alert reader and Slate contributor Emily Yoffe writes to correct
my too-short list of serial fabricators; she suggests USA Today's
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 5: Why I'm Shortchanging the Sun Plot
Posted Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at 10:49 AM ET
Dear Jeff
Pardon me while I pander to our readers. Within minutes of my
last post going live, Peter S. dropped me e-mail with the correct
dialogue from the Alma-Gus scene:
Alma: Follow-ups on the recent murders. An
arrest on one, which was the domestic cutting
from Hampden. No arrests on a couple of
drug-relateds from East Baltimore.
Gus: OK, give me a bit for the budget line.
Alma: Domestic was a Patricia Bogus, found
in her car. Drug-relateds were one Joseph
Stewart, found in his dining room, and one
Nathaniel Manns, found in an alley garage.
107/124
Hungry Man, presumably, is Nathaniel Manns.
Second pander: Fray poster Sasha remembered the most chilling
example of a straight-arrow worker intersecting Wire world: In
Season 4, Marlo steals a lollipop right in front of a grocery store
security guard. When the guard confronts him, Marlo has him
killed.
Halfway through, I still have hope (because, like Obama, I'm all
about hope) that the newsroom drama will somehow become
complicated and realistic. But I promise—if next week's episode
has something interesting to tell us about Marlo or Omar or
Bunk or Cedric Daniels, I'll be sure to make note of it. Before
going back to complaining about the Sun.
Jeff
Third and final pander: I'm shortchanging the Sun plot because
that's what our readers want. Judging from my inbox and the
Fray, they think that we're obsessed with the Sun plot because
we're journalists. And they're right. So stop being so selfinvolved, Jeff! Try to think about someone other than yourself,
for a change!
David
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 6: What the Hell Is Going On?
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 7:27 AM ET
Dear David,
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 5: Hopes for the Second Half
Posted Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at 11:07 AM ET
Dear David,
You're shortchanging the Sun subplot because this is "what our
readers want"?
What if our readers wanted you to jump out a fifth-floor window
of a Baltimore apartment building?
What if our readers wanted you to stop Marlo Stanfield from
boosting Tootsie Pops?
What if our readers wanted you ditch your wife for Snoop?
What if our readers wanted you to speak from now on with a
ridiculous Greek accent?
Since when do you care about your readers? What do you think
you're writing for, the Web?
The People of the Fray are only partially right; we do in fact
(speak for yourself, Goldberg, I hear Plotz say) write about our
industry because we are interested in it, but the truth is that we're
supposed to write about David Simon's show, and David Simon's
show has much to do with journalism. Unfortunately.
I'd like to write only about Omar's auto-defenestration, but this
season is mainly about Simon's obsession with newspapering.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
OK, I have to ask this: Am I mistaken, or did Jimmy McNulty
kidnap a mentally and physically incapacitated homeless man,
take his picture, and then drive him to Washington (or
Richmond, Va.? Please inform) and hide him in a homeless
shelter so that he could use the photo as evidence of an
abduction in his make-believe homeless serial-killer
investigation, evidence that will invariably, and quite soon,
appear in the press and on national television, which should
prompt the obviously competent shelter director to tell the
police, "Why, that homeless man on television wasn't kidnapped;
in fact, he's eating lunch right here," at which point the police
will ask her how he arrived at the shelter, at which time she will
describe to them the physical appearance of Jimmy McNulty,
who by that time will probably be appearing on television
anyway as the lead detective in the by-now most sensational
murder-kidnap case in America, and did Jimmy McNulty kidnap
this mentally and physically incapacitated homeless man in
order to free several hundred dollars from his commanders so
that Lester, who is already running an illegal wiretap, could
unscramble the photo messages Marlo now apparently uses to
communicate?
And, by the way, did Omar survive a five-story fall with only a
leg injury?
And one other thing: Did Templeton really set out on a reporting
trip to the underpasses of Baltimore wearing a Kansas City Star
T-shirt?
Or am I missing something?
No, I just looked again: He's wearing a Kansas City Star T-shirt,
all right. Is this because his "I'm a Douchebag" T-shirt was in the
laundry?
108/124
David, you're a smart fellow. Tell me: What the hell is going on?
Jeff
I'm sorry to see that my prediction about Marlo and the co-op
came true. That was our last gathering of the drug dealer board,
because, as Marlo says, "I ain't really one for meets no how."
Also, does Jimmy McNulty ever listen to anything besides the
Pogues? (Not that I'm complaining: I'm going to the Pogues'
D.C. concert next month.)
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 6: The Sublime Bunk Moreland Soldiers On
Your increasingly vexed colleague,
David
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 10:35 AM ET
Dear Jeff,
Evan threatens Lily and Lucinda with a poison syringe. Margo
finds out the hostage taker is Evan Walsh. Lucinda promises to
fund Evan's research offshore. Lily tries to save Lucinda. Evan
is stabbed with the poison syringe. Lily blasts Lucinda for her
scheming and blames her for Dusty's death. Holden admits he'd
be lost without Lily. Lily feels the same. Chris tells Emily he
never wants to see her again. …
Oh, wait, that's from As the World Turns.
I'm beginning to think Wendell Pierce is all that stands between
this season of The Wire and farce. While all around him turn into
parodic versions of themselves, the sublime Bunk Moreland
soldiers on, exasperated by the incompetent crime lab, bullying
Michael's mother to give up information about her boyfriend's
death, and, in what was the most affecting scene in the episode,
vainly trying to persuade a sullen Randy to cooperate in a
murder investigation. Randy was the most delightful and
promising of the Season 4 schoolboys—a joyful little bundle of
entrepreneurial energy. His fall is as sad as anything The Wire
has ever shown us. What's astonishing is that it takes only a few
brilliant shots to show us his ruination: Randy muscled up in his
wife-beater, Randy walking out on Bunk into the hellish chaos
of the group home, Randy gratuitously shoving a little kid on the
stairs. The destruction of an entire life, compressed into 15
seconds. Too bad it was shoved into such a stinking mess of an
episode.
A quick journalistic procedural question for you, since you've
been a daily newspaper reporter and I haven't: Do we really
think Gus and Scott managed to check out that PTSD Marine's
story in one day? Did they really manage to get the Marines to
confirm that this guy was a Marine, that he has PTSD, that he
was in an explosion outside Fallujah where someone lost his
hands … etc. Because judging by what my friends at the
Washington Post go through, it would take about three weeks to
get the military to confirm a story like that.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 6: Death of the Co-Op, Death of The Wire
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 11:21 AM ET
Dear David,
It struck me while watching the sixth, and so far most
implausible, episode of the final season that the death of the coop signals the death of The Wire. How's that for a topic
sentence? But think about it: The co-op was one of David
Simon's cleverest inventions (the funeral home gatherings were
my favorite, as they were yours, I believe). Now, he's giving us
the inane, banal, and systematically unrealistic Baltimore Sun
newsroom. Four episodes left, and hope grows dim.
Have you, by any chance, noticed that each episode now delivers
some sodden journalistic cliché? Last week, Gus informed us,
with knowing weariness, that "if it bleeds, it leads." Fascinating
thought. This week, the judge helpfully instructs Pearlman and
McNulty never to "pick a fight with someone who buys ink by
the barrel." Next week, I imagine, we'll receive a lesson on the
"Five Ws and How." I don't understand what's happening here. I
still find it hard to believe that David Simon has nothing
interesting to say about newspapering.
To answer your question, no, of course the alleged Marine's
story would never pass muster in a day. Imagine this
conversation between Plotz and Goldberg:
Goldberg: David, I just met a mentally ill homeless man under
an overpass, and he told me the true story of the battle of Falluja
in beautifully rendered detail.
Plotz: Hold the front page!
I'm not sure it would take three weeks to confirm the basics of
the story, but it certainly would take a week or so just to confirm
109/124
his true identity. Besides, no capable city editor would allow this
story even to come to the attention of his managing editor
without doing some basic verification first, especially if the
reporter who reeled in the story was so obviously mistrusted by
his own desk. Thank you for pointing this out—I can't believe I
missed the absurdity of this scene the first time around. I think I
was too busy railing against Templeton's Kansas City Star Tshirt, which, you have to admit, was idiotic. More than idiotic,
actually—it was insulting. We're not dumb; we get that
Templeton is, among other things, a yokel and an outsider,
unworthy of Simon's newsroom.
Aaargh.
At least we have the Bunk, as you note. Don't you get the sense
that it will be the Bunk's careful police work, rather than
McNulty's haywire scheming, that unravels Marlo? And that
Michael is the thread he'll pull?
Jeff
P.S. I've got nothing for you on the Pogues. I'm comprehensively
uninterested now in McNulty.
Marlo/homeless murder/Omar mess and b) guess which beloved
friend gets did.
With that in mind, here's my initial guess: Bunk's police work
implicates Michael in his stepfather's murder. Feeling pangs of
conscience, Michael agrees to help Bunk get Marlo, but Marlo
has Michael killed first. Unfortunately, this does not help us with
the homeless plot and Omar. I don't think Omar can die
(because, as we've discussed, he's outside the laws of space and
time). On the other hand, I don't think Marlo can die either. He
embodies the evils of modernity, as Simon sees them:
sociopathy, lack of feeling, greed. So he can't be brought low.
Yet it's hard to see how Omar and Marlo both live. So I've talked
myself into a corner.
Plotz
P.S. Speaking of great Sunday-night television, I watched the
Grammys last night, too, and had an entirely non-Wire-related
question for you: What's the deal with Amy Winehouse and
Judaism? Can you go find out? Our readers may not know this,
but you are also the founder of Jewsrock.org, the Jewish rock
hall of fame. Can you please assign one your crack staffers to
figure out: 1) What kind of Jew she is; 2) If there are any other
Jewish rockers who have cracked up so spectacularly; and 3)
Does she really recite the Shema in that crazy accent?
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 6: Institutional Loyalists vs. Noble Rebels
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 3:38 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
I know you don't want to talk about Jimmy and Lester, but my
colleague Emily Bazelon had an interesting insight about their
lunatic freelance plot. Usually The Wire has asked us to
sympathize with the rebels, to relish the way Lester and Jimmy
(and Bunny Colvin, and Teacher Prez) broke the rules of the
system to do good. But this season the rebels have befouled
everything. Their homeless killer mishigas is ruining the good,
institutional police work of Bunk and Kima. The Wire has put us
in the unprecedented (and uncomfortable) position of siding with
the institutional loyalists against the noble rebels.
Now that we're sliding down the back slope of the season, with
only four episodes left to go, we should play the Wire Parlor
Game. In the final couple of episodes of every season, The Wire
generally does two things: First, it unravels the major plot
complication (Hamsterdam in Season 3, the ports murder in
Season 2); and second, murders a sympathetic and/or fascinating
character (Wallace in Season 1, Stringer Bell in Season 3, Bodie
in Season 4). So the game is: a) guess how they'll unravel the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 6: Predicting Who Lives and Who Dies
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 4:14 PM ET
Dear David,
What kind of Jew is Amy Winehouse? My guess is a heroinaddicted Jew. With a great voice.
She's actually the offspring of London blue-collar Jewry (her
father's a taxi driver), which is a fast-disappearing subset of a
fast-disappearing community; and she's apparently excited—
when she's not cooked—by her Jewishness. In fact, she keeps
threatening to make a Hanukkah album, which, by the way, I'm
all for. Winehouse would stand a good chance of introducing
danger back into a once-thrilling and complicated holiday
(When Elephants Attack Jews!—go look it up) that's been
pasteurized and homogenized to within an inch of its eight-day
life.
Interesting, very smart, point from Emily Bazelon. Maybe she's
identified the reason that we've been so discombobulated by this
110/124
season. I'm particularly unhappy with Lester's transformation.
He and Bunk were the moral centers of the cop-shop, and I need
Lester to be Lester, not McNulty's partner in stupidity. It's
strange to flip the script on us so late in the story, and it's not
working. This is why I think there's still a chance Lester will trap
Marlo, rather than Bunk; because if he doesn't, then he's just a
shmuck, and that's a terrible way to end this show, with Lester a
shmuck. What would be the argument for turning Lester into a
shmuck? That the city, its oafishness, made its greatest detective
crazy by denying him a shopping run to Best Buy?
Chris dies. That's my prediction. You're right about Marlo—
Marlo has to live, because capitalism can't be put down, but
Chris can be shed. Snoop, however, is too smart to die. And
corruption most certainly won't die, which is why I predict that
Clay Davis is left standing, and maybe Templeton, too. No,
almost certainly Templeton: I can't imagine David Simon letting
the good guys—and Gus is Simon's dashboard saint—win in the
Baltimore Sun newsroom. For him, that would be a fairy tale.
As for Omar, I think it's quite possible Omar dies, for the same
reason that Marlo lives. Omar still has a code; he's a
throwback—he robs from the rich and gives to the poor, and he
listens to Motown, just in case you didn't get that he's a
throwback. Omar's way of life is over, and I think he could be
over, as well.
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 6: Stop Sending Me YouTube Spoilers!
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008, at 4:59 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
As I was writing my last entry, and thinking about how the
murder of Stringer Bell capped Season 3, I remembered a
fantastic story that Wire screenwriter and crime novelist George
Pelecanos told at a panel I moderated during last year's Filmfest
D.C. According to Pelecanos, the original version of the Stringer
murder script had Omar urinating on Stringer's corpse. But Idris
Elba, the actor playing Stringer, was quite unhappy about the
pee scene and complained about it. (Although, as Pelecanos
pointed out, Elba himself would not have been pissed on. There
would have been a stunt double taking the stream.) Ultimately,
Pelecanos said, the show's creators cut the pissing part.
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 7: This Is The Wire That I Fell in Love With
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008, at 7:01 AM ET
Dear Jeff,
Kima staring out on the moonlit streets of Baltimore and reciting
this benediction to her sleepless semi-son: "Good night, moon.
Good night, popos. Good night, fiends. Good night, hoppers.
Good night, hustlers. Good night, scammers. Good night to
everybody. Good night to one and all." What a spectacular
ending to a sublime episode!
This is The Wire that I fell in love with. I didn't think there could
be a television courtroom scene better than Omar's testimony in
the Season 2 murder trial, but last night's Clay Davis soliloquy,
culminating with that grand gesture of standing up and turning
his empty pockets inside out, topped it. If Isaiah Whitlock Jr.
doesn't get an Emmy (or at least his own sitcom) after his
performance this season, there's no justice. (Which, as we
learned in the Davis trial, there isn't.)
Actually, can you wait a second?
Dear Readers,
Please, please, please do not send me (or your friends) any more
YouTube clips showing purported scenes from upcoming Wire
episodes—particularly that monster spoiler showing you-knowwho shooting you-know-who at the you-know-where. I don't
know if the clips are real or if they're canny misdirections, and I
don't care. Either way, they're aggravating! If they're genuine, I
hope David Simon finds the guy who's been posting them and
sends Snoop after him.
OK, Jeff, I'm back.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
You and I haven't paid much attention to The Wire's directors or
writers, but Episode 7 was so great that I want to give all praise
to novelist Richard Price (Clockers), who wrote it, and Dominic
West, who directed it. West, who plays Jimmy McNulty, even
improved his own performance. The Jimmy of Episode 7 is
enthrallingly confused: anxious over his escalating fraud, gleeful
at helping his colleagues advance their cases, embarrassed at his
new sugar-daddy role as "boss."
A few things that stood out for me in Episode 7. First, the
obsession with money. From Clay Davis' fee negotiation with
his lawyer, to Carcetti's short-lived joy after raising $92,000 for
his gubernatorial campaign, to Davis' courtroom peroration, to
111/124
the judge nudging Rhonda to pick up the check, to the police
department and newspaper pouring resources into their
homeless-killer investigations, to Omar spurning Marlo's cash,
money is the deep theme of the episode. Or rather, the fallacy of
money: The police chiefs, the editors, and the mayor think
money is the answer. But the dollar isn't almighty: Money can't
solve a murder that never really happened.
Second: the continued martyrdom of Bunk. Did you notice how
many shots of Bunk showed him squashed, as though a weight
was bearing down on him? Watch those scenes of him in the
office: He appears crushed in the foreground, struggling with his
real police work, while the charade of the serial killer
investigation plays out behind him.
Third: the lovely visual joke of Marlo's watches. The cops don't
know what time it is!
I suspect that Omar signed his own death warrant this week.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Omar has never killed for sport
before, never murdered an innocent. Savino isn't a choirboy, but
he never wronged Omar directly. By doing Savino, coldblooded, on the street, Omar betrays his own code. He's no
longer a sanguinary angel, just an outlaw gangster. He may still
have his revenge on Marlo, but he may have lost his halo of
protection.
assertion?) that Omar is finished; there's no room for Robin
Hood in Marlo Stanfield's Baltimore.
As you note, Richard Price and Isiah Whitlock Jr., in the
breakout performance of the season as Clay Davis (listen to me,
I sound like Peter Travers), combined this week to remind us of
what The Wire once was—a blunt, complicated exposé of the
devastated American city, with jokes. Maybe it doesn't take vast
courage to portray a black politician as a criminally conniving
ignoramus (Aeschylus!), but the impiety of it all—the cynical
nod last week to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" comes to mind—is
refreshing.
I'll lay off the episode's manifest weaknesses for the moment,
since you've fallen in love and I don't want to wound your tender
heart, but because I can't help myself, let me point out one
moment in which this episode was too clever by half. It came
during the trial, when Clay Davis referred disparagingly to the
prosecutor, Rupert Bond, as "Obonda." Maybe when the episode
was filmed this seemed like a clever joke, but now, with
everything we know about Obama's overwhelming popularity
among African-Americans (and coming just several days after
the Maryland primary), it fell awfully flat.
Dyspeptically yours,
Jeff
Yours with delight,
David
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 7: Bitey the Bloodthirsty
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 7: No Room for Robin Hood in Marlo's Baltimore
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008, at 11:21 AM ET
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008, at 12:16 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
Why be such a hater? (Or should that be hata?)
Dear David,
Slow down there, Slim Plotz. You write as if you were watching
Chinatown. Last night's episode had its moments—Clay Davis'
moment most especially—but it also gave us more of McNulty's
wearying, improbable scamming and more Baltimore Sun
pedantry, of which this reporter is thoroughly sick.
And while I'm on a rampage, let me defend Omar's decision to
shoot Savino in the head. Strike that, I won't defend Savino's
killing, in case I run for office one day and someone dredges up
this post as a defense of cold-blooded murder, but I would argue
that the killing was of a piece with Omar's methods. That said, I
agree with your previous assertion (or was that my previous
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
On the Obonda joke, cut David Simon and Richard Price some
slack. Six months ago, they made a guess that 1) Barack Obama
would be an important enough cultural figure in late February
that they could risk a joke about him; and 2) Obama's support
among black voters might be tenuous or touchy enough that the
joke would make sense. They were dead right about No. 1 and a
little bit off about No. 2. You really want to fault them for failing
to predict the ebb and flow of the Democratic primary
campaign? Do you actually think their six-month-out guess was
worse than the (much more recent) forecasts by political
reporters and pundits whose job it is to follow the race? I don't,
and I give them ballsy points for risking the joke at all.
112/124
Yes, I share your general dismay about the linked faux serial
killer/newspaper fabulist plots. (Klebanow, in particular, was
ridiculous this week, more Dr. Evil than Marimow.) But given
that we're yoked to these stories—this is not a Choose Your Own
Adventure book, where you can start over with a different plot
point—I think Simon and Co. did a dazzling job turning manure
into fuel this week. As with Hamsterdam—the Season 3 premise
that was almost as preposterous as this year's Bitey the
Bloodthirsty—the unraveling can vindicate the awkward setup.
The collapse of Hamsterdam, which gave us Bunny Colvin's
disgrace, the return of crazed drug violence, and the seeds of
Marlo's rise, was dazzling to watch. And while I'm not claiming
that the Bitey plot holds a candle to Hamsterdam, I found this
week's escalation at the mayor's office, police department, and
yes, even the newspaper, fascinating and persuasive. It's going to
be fun watching it all fall apart in the next couple of weeks.
Also, I think you're wrong that the killing of Savino is vintage
Omar. He has killed while stealing from drug dealers, and he
killed Stringer Bell for revenge, but I can't remember him taking
out a random bad guy like that. Readers, who's right about this,
me or Jeff? Is this the same old Robin Hood Omar or a new
Omar?
A couple of weeks ago, I whined that The Wire doesn't show
young black men in the working world, but this week it had a
heartbreaking nod in that direction—Dukie flipping through the
want ads. The jobs are hopelessly out of his reach. He doesn't
even know what most of them are.
Speaking of egregiousness, how can you possibly believe that
the Hamsterdam premise was as preposterous as the story line
you call, quite succinctly, "Bitey the Bloodthirsty"? The first had
to do with an experiment in de facto drug legalization in a small
corner of the city by a thoughtful and frustrated police official.
The second has formerly competent police detectives concocting
from scratch the story of a serial murderer who bites homeless
men on the ass, or the thighs, or wherever. I'm quite sure that, in
real life, at various times in various places, thoughtful and
frustrated police officials have conducted experiments along the
lines of Bunny Colvin's; I have never heard of a story in which
police detectives defile corpses and kidnap a homeless man, all
in order to extract computer equipment from their superiors.
Since you've already asked the readers of this dialogue to
contextualize Omar's killing of Savino, let me put this question
out there as well: Is Hamsterdam as outrageous an idea as Bitey
the Bloodthirsty?
That said, I will admit to something: I'm actually just a wee bit
curious to see if Templeton gets caught. I'm assuming it's Gus
who will go down, for questioning Templeton's bona fides (this
is a guess, but an informed one, since we've all read David
Simon on the real-life Sun), but I've become curious. But it's not
the sort of curiosity I felt about the fate of, say, Bunny Colvin;
it's the sort of curiosity that develops about one-third of the way
through an episode of Law & Order.
Back to you, Bitey.
David
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 7: What's More Outrageous, Hamsterdam or Bitey?
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 7: How Marlo Stanfield Is Like Daniel Plainview
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008, at 12:41 PM ET
Posted Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 11:33 AM ET
Dear David,
Dear Jeff,
Cut them some slack?
If you say so. I'll stipulate that this is a minor complaint, but I
think the "Obanda" reference bothered me because it represented
an intrusion into an otherwise excellent subplot of the sort of
faux-sophisticated knowingness that infects the newsroom
dialogue so egregiously. You'll recall that this has happened
before, at a story meeting at the Sun, where the small-talk among
the editors concerned the baseball steroid scandal, except that all
the supposedly sly references were six months out of date.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
This afternoon I took my kids to see Roar: Lions of the
Kalahari, an IMAX documentary at the Smithsonian Museum of
Natural History, and, of course, it got me thinking about The
Wire. In Roar, an old male lion rules a water hole at the
Kalahari, with a bevy of hot young lionesses to hunt springbok
for him and raise his cubs. But a younger, tougher male shows
up at the hole, challenges and conquers the old king, takes his
ladies, and exiles him to the desert, where he soon dies. It's the
Marlo-Prop Joe story, or maybe the Marlo-Avon story, but with
springbok as the bodies and the desert as the vacants.
113/124
Roar made me notice something I had overlooked about this
season of The Wire. It's perfectly obvious what the lions are
fighting for: sex, food, and reproductive advantage. The male
lion who triumphs gets all the lionesses and as much springbok
as he can eat. But it's not at all clear what Marlo is fighting for.
He has no appetites. He sucks on lollipops. He's never fooling
around with hot women, never spending his money on flashy
cars, never taking the slightest bit of pleasure in his
achievements or even in his money. The two great capitalist
villains of this year's culture are Marlo and Daniel Plainview, the
vicious protagonist of There Will Be Blood. They are very
similar, and somewhat unpersuasive, because they lack any
human appetites. Yes, there is an occasional businessman who
longs only for money, not the tangible satisfactions that money
brings. But most capitalists—even the nastiest, most ruthless of
the breed—are in it to get laid, to buy a fancier jet, to own a
bigger house, to get the kids into the best school. That's why I
continue to find Marlo slightly unsatisfying as a character: He
represents an idea of pathological capitalism, but because he's an
idea, he's not persuasively human. Even Chris Partlow gets a
wife and kids.
And since I'm being all ponderous and philosophical, let me
mention another perhaps tenuous connection, between The Wire
and this week's Roger Clemens-Brian McNamee steroid hearing.
Republican members of Congress who support Clemens all but
called McNamee a rat, accusing him of betraying a friend to
protect himself. Their assault on McNamee is an unsettling
reminder of how pervasive the "stop snitchin' " code has
become. Stop snitchin' is a pervasive theme of The Wire, from
D'Angelo in Season 1 to Randy in Season 4. And this season,
we're seeing stop snitchin' through Bunk's eyes. He can't get
anywhere in his investigation into the murder of Michael's
stepfather. We see Bunk desperately trying to bully or cajole or
trick his witnesses into revealing something, but they're smart
enough protect themselves. What's so clever about Bunk's
frustration is that he himself is obeying the stop snitchin' code in
his own life, even as he tries to get his witnesses to break it.
Bunk knows that Jimmy and Lester have faked the murders and
that the bogus investigation is stealing time and money away
from real police work, but he won't rat Jimmy out. The right
thing to do would be to snitch on Jimmy and end his charade.
But Bunk, like his silent witnesses, has chosen loyalty over right,
and the people of Baltimore must pay the price.
With a roar, not a whimper,
David
Posted Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET
Dear David,
It's uncanny the degree to which we think alike! As I was
watching this most recent episode of The Wire, it suddenly
occurred to me that not only is hakuna matata a wonderful
phrase, it ain't no passing craze. Hakuna matata, David, is my
problem-free philosophy.
You, on the other hand, think too much. What kind of job is it,
exactly, being the deputy editor of Slate? Lots of wildlife
documentaries, apparently.
I'm sorry to report that I've had nothing but superficial thoughts
about this week's episode, including and especially this
(recurring) one: Do not make David Simon mad, or he'll get his
revenge on HBO. Obviously, he had some sort of traumatic
shopping experience at Ikea. I hold no brief for Ikea, but The
Wire does get its hate on rather obviously, doesn't it? After seven
episodes, not only do I want to buy Bill Marimow a drink, I want
to buy it at the Ikea cafeteria. Which I guess would limit us to
Aquavit, but whatever.
I have to disagree with you—again—this week. I think Marlo
made it abundantly clear what he desires, apart from lollipops.
Do you remember the look on his face as he watched Chris shoot
Prop Joe? It was orgasmic. Marlo craves power—specifically,
the power to take away life. Remember that Chris and Snoop are
merely his instruments, and remember that Chris actually seems
frightened of him. I don't think that Marlo's type is so unusual, in
literature or in real life (which is not to say that I know many
people outside of journalism who remind me of him), and I don't
find him as monochromatic as you do. He's not a machine; he is
capable of deriving joy, just not the way you derive it (to the
best of my knowledge). Also, he does have a nice car.
I like your McNamee-Randy analogy, by the way. I'm in the
Middle East right now and haven't had the chance to watch those
hearings (weirdly, al-Jazeera and Israel TV aren't covering the
steroid scandal), and I didn't realize that the Republican Party
had taken such a hard line against snitching. But here's the thing,
in defense of Bunk, though not necessarily in defense of the
Republicans who roughed up McNamee: You and I both know
that we'd think less of Bunk if he ratted Jimmy out.
Ha det så bra!
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 7: David Simon's Traumatic Shopping Experience at Ikea
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
114/124
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 8: Is The Wire Back or What?
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008, at 10:42 AM ET
Dear David,
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 8: Why Marlo Is Safe
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008, at 11:18 AM ET
Omar Little, RIP.
Dear Jeff,
But it should have been Templeton.
Man, is The Wire back or what? Yes, I actually liked last night's
episode. There, I said it. Are you happy?
Omar's death at the hands of an 11-year-old was pitch-perfect. A
gay, shotgun-brandishing Robin Hood has no home in a city
whose streets throw off boys like Kenard, the miniature killer
with the dirty mouth. Kenard is the natural heir to Marlo. He's
not yet dead to feeling—witness his fear and shock in the
presence of Omar's dropped body—but he's the sort of prodigy
that The Wire has been warning America about for five mostly
excellent seasons. The killing of Omar by a prepubescent street
imp rang entirely true, a testament to the reality of the world
David Simon has created.
This was an almost entirely great episode. Clay Davis was
delightfully venal; Snoop spit like a champion; Lester showed
flashes of his old brilliant self—and of his deep sense of right
and wrong; even McNulty stirred feelings of pity in me. Bunk,
of course, was Bunk—I wish we could convince someone to
give him his own show. And that visit to Quantico was comic
genius. (For more on the subject of the self-serving
flimflammery of FBI profilers, read this recent Malcolm
Gladwell piece.)
The too-many visits to the newsroom were absurd, of course, but
I've lowered my expectations to Dead Sea levels, so I halfenjoyed them, particularly the spectacle of Gus telling off the
managing editor. Not because it was great drama but because I
like to watch people tell off managing editors. As we discussed
last week, though, if Gus were an actual editor rather than a
cardboard fantasy of an editor, he would have called the
Pentagon before running the story on the homeless vet, not after.
One question for you: Did you get the feeling, as I did, that Chris
is going to kill Marlo? After all, Marlo did not, in fact, come
down to the street to meet Omar's challenge. If Chris sees Marlo
for the punk he apparently is, well, it's goodbye, Marlo.
Jeff
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
When The Wire ended, I switched right over to the Academy
Awards. Now that's a culture shock and a comedown: Clay
Davis to Colin Farrell. On the other hand, now they're playing
that great song from Once, so I'm not going to complain too
much.
Much as I would prefer to bicker with you, I totally agree about
the episode's excellence and about Omar's murder. Even though
Omar's shooting was the YouTube superspoiler sent to me by a
reader a couple of weeks ago, it still came as a heart-rending
shock. Didn't you like the way they set it up with that shot of
Kenard preparing to set fire to an alley cat? Omar's death also
gave us a wonderful newsroom moment: Prop Joe's murder at
least rated a brief in the paper, but not Omar's. Even the Dalai
Gus—who bought Google at $70, cooks chicken soup for his
shut-in neighbor, and restores the blind to sight with a wellchosen word—doesn't know who Omar is and blows off his
killing.
You've been right about an astonishing number of your
predictions, but I can't get behind your Chris-killing-Marlo
guess. I still don't think Marlo can die: The lesson of The Wire
has to be that the game never stops and that it always gets worse.
Avon could be deposed, because Marlo was there to replace him
and make the streets bloodier and crueler. But Marlo, as the
embodiment of the remorselessness of capitalism, can't be killed,
because there's no one who could replace him. If Marlo died,
there would a vacuum: None of his lieutenants or rivals
possesses his homicidal entrepreneurship. Marlo's death would
leave us the possibility of hope, but I don't think Simon would
leave us with that. As he's shown us time and again, he believes
only in individual redemption—Bubbles, or Bunny and Namond.
The city itself, and all the institutions that belong to it, can only
get worse. So, I think Marlo's safe. Then again, I've been wrong
about everything else.
I've been watching the decay of Carcetti with a sickening
fascination, and tonight's scene between him and his wife was
particularly choice. When we see Carcetti scheming with
Norman and his other cronies, his relentless ambition seems
natural and acceptable. Transplanted into the home, into sweet
domesticity, it's revealed for the cynical sickness that it is. His
wife is repulsed and disturbed by his opportunism, reminding us
that we have to be, too. As I wrote those sentences, I realized
115/124
that the Carcetti/wife moment parallels the McNulty/Beadie
face-off at the end of the episode: Jimmy expects forgiveness
from Beadie for his professional crime (and personal sins), but
she turns her back on him. It is the women, in the sanctity of
home—the only safe space on The Wire—who can see the ugly
truth about their men and their deeds.
Omar-less and rudderless,
David
nothing to suggest that Chris couldn't fill his shoes; he is, to
invert your phrase a bit, an entrepreneur of homicide. He just has
to learn Greek.
One more question, suggested to us by our maximum leader:
What was the point of seeing Omar laid out in the morgue,
victimized one final time, in this instance by a city bureaucrat? If
it was to prove the point that the city doesn't work, well, I think
the point has been made. Or was it just to allow the audience to
mourn? Or get a fleeting glimpse of Omar's groin?
Jeff
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 8: Could Chris Fill Marlo's Shoes?
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008, at 2:02 PM ET
Dear David,
The second-most implausible character in last night's episode,
after walk-on-water-Gus (as you have already noted, he restores
sight to the blind, but did you also know that, in his spare time,
he invents superefficient biofuels while battling al-Qaida with
thought rays?), is Carcetti's wife. I didn't see what you saw: No
wife I know, including my own wife, and yours as well, would
sit even semidisagreeably by her just-come-home-from-a-longday-at-the-office husband's side as he surfs cable for images of
himself, of all things. And, by the way, Carcetti's fall doesn't
seem like such a fall to me; he's always been one of David
Simon's most interesting and complicated characters—I don't
think you could plausibly argue that he's shed all of his idealism
this season in pursuit of the governor's mansion. Witness his
press conference performance on the homeless. I think he's
actually quite a sympathetic figure. Every successful politician
in America kowtows to men like Clay Davis; they couldn't be
successful without them. OK, maybe not Clay Davis, exactly,
but every Saint Obama has his Rezko. Isn't this what David
Simon is telling us? That everybody's dirty?
I have to ask you to reconsider my Chris-kills-Marlo
hypothetical. It came to me in a flash when Marlo, obviously
relieved that Omar is dead, smiles (which is bad enough) and
then promises Chris a trip to Atlantic City, N.J. Chris' look just
then was homicidal. Chris is obviously humiliated by the
circumstances of Omar's death; a small boy did what he and his
whole crew could not. Chris' anger (and, based on the evidence,
he has something of a problem with anger) could redirect itself
against Marlo, who, this episode proved, is not quite as tough as
Chris and Snoop. After all, where was Marlo during the Omaras-Batman shootout? Nowhere to be found. Omar may get his
posthumous revenge on Marlo; keep in mind that Omar dirtied
Marlo's name up and down the city before expiring. I agree with
you that Marlo is obviously an adept businessman, but there's
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 8: I'm Stunned You Still See Idealism in Carcetti
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008, at 3:21 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
Did you know that Gus Haynes is Barack Obama's closest
friend? Did you know that a beagle owned by Gus Haynes won
this year's Westminster dog show? Did you know that Ralph
Lauren bottles Gus Haynes' sweat and sells it as perfume?
I've always liked Carcetti's wife because of her combination of
sweetness and brittleness, exactly what you'd expect from a
careerless political wife. She didn't give much away in that scene
last night, but you really didn't detect her unease with her
husband? Also, I'm stunned that you still see idealism in
Carcetti. The homeless speechifying is entirely cynical, purposebuilt to humiliate the governor: He doesn't have any substantive
policy to back up the gasbaggery. Carcetti has betrayed
everything he once said about how he would govern: He's
clinging to stats, seeking cheap PR victories, casting off allies,
all in the service of his own power. What action has he taken this
season that was not designed to promote Carcetti?
(Oh, I just thought of a third example of woman as conscience:
Unlike all the male cops, Kima refuses to play along with the
serial-killer sham and rebukes Lester.)
David Simon, mind reader: A few weeks ago, I rapped The Wire
for ignoring the working world of black men:
The Wire shorts a key and tragic point about
American life. The lives of the dealers are
grim, but the lives of the working poor may be
sadder still. There's little glamour serving
chicken on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at
116/124
Popeyes, and it's hard (though perhaps not
impossible) to make a career selling sneakers
at Foot Locker.
Now Episode 8 shows us Dukie trying to get a legitimate job at a
Foot Locker-like store and getting ruefully turned away by Poot,
Bodie's old corner-running buddy.
You're right, of course, about the Chris-Marlo tension—that
Atlantic City exchange was electric. I agree that the show is
setting up some kind of spectacular denouement for Chris: His
unease with Marlo, Bunk's DNA evidence against him, the
budding conflict between him and Michael, his anxiety about his
children—all of these point to some kind of showdown. So from
an emotional perspective, your Marlo murder scheme makes
sense. But I still don't think the worldview of The Wire would
permit the kind of void that Marlo's assassination would leave.
The death of Marlo, taken together with the deaths of Prop Joe
and Stringer Bell—and the imprisonment of Avon—would
suggest that the smartest and most ruthless drug dealers really
can be stopped (even if the police don't do it) and that the drug
organizations really can be degraded. (You're a journalist who
studies Israel: The entire premise of Israel's policy of targeted
assassination is that killing the smartest and most capable leaders
of Hamas will paralyze the organization because the surviving
lieutenants won't be as effective.) But less effective drug gangs
would mean progress on an institutional scale, and that is
something that The Wire refuses to accept as a possibility. So I
think the only way Marlo can die is if someone is established as
an equally brilliant, equally ruthless heir, and none of the
gangsters we've met—not even Chris, who's too pensive and
moody and facing airtight DNA murder evidence—has the
brains and skill to replace Marlo.
But I've been wrong about everything and you've been right, so
Chris will probably pop one in Marlo's skull five minutes into
Episode 9.
David
me as your nominee, I will pick Gus Haynes as my running
mate.
To be fair, I've had editors, especially early in my career, who
mesmerized me the way Gus mesmerizes David Simon. But then
I realized that most of them were narcissistic shitbags. But
maybe that's just my experience.
You haven't convinced me on Carcetti—I believe the man still
wants to do good, which is why he's so interesting as a character,
in a way that his predecessor in office wasn't. But you've halfconvinced me on Marlo. I see your point—Marlo needs to be left
standing in order to make a very important point about the
futility of the drug war, among other things. And if The Wire
doesn't give Bunk a victory, then I'm canceling HBO. Unless
The Wire has become just irretrievably dark, I can't imagine a
situation in which Chris escapes Bunk's DNA evidence, and
since there's no escape, there's little chance Chris will overthrow
Marlo before Bunk closes in. Of course, Chris could knock off
Marlo and then Bunk could knock off Chris, but then it's a happy
ending, and I don't imagine we'll be having one of those. Of
course, if McNulty is allowed to die in a pool of his own vomit,
or if Lester accidentally overdoses on dollhouse glue, or Bubbles
becomes a heartless schmuck, then I suppose the show could
safely kill off Marlo without anyone accusing David Simon of
staging a cheap morality play.
Did you notice, by the way, that I said you might be right about
something?
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 8: Taking Omar Down a Few Notches
Updated Monday, February 25, 2008, at 5:32 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 8: If The Wire Doesn't Give Bunk a Victory, I'm Canceling HBO
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008, at 3:50 PM ET
Dear David,
First, let me respond to a reader question about whether we
watch the "next week on The Wire" segments at the end of each
episode. I don't watch those previews, so I may have missed
some foreshadowing. Do you watch them?
Second, because I'd rather read smart Wire commentary than
write it, I'm going to hand over this week's final entry to reader
Nate Denny, who sent us a perceptive answer to your question
about the final scene with Omar's corpse:
I think what we're learning here is that you are a cynic, whereas I
am the candidate of both hope and change. And if you choose
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
117/124
I think the whole point was Simon telling us
how much we've missed the point in our five
years of Omar-worship. The whole episode
serves to take Omar down a few notches. He
doesn't get his big, badass face-off with Marlo;
he gets got by the same little punk (possibly
the show's most obnoxious, least sympathetic
character) whose face Michael pounded last
season and who has nothing better to do than
torture cats. Further, a bunch of kids disrespect
Omar by rifling through his pockets for
souvenirs, Sun writers don't even realize that a
legend has passed, and inept city morgue
employees almost bag the wrong guy with
Omar's name.
No one in the episode realizes how important
Omar's passing is, and maybe that's because
it's ultimately not that important. Omar is a
distraction: entertainment in an otherwise
bleak and weighty depiction of the death of a
city. Simon puts his finger in our eye and
dismisses our favorite character with nary a
backward look, and he's probably right to do
so.
whether he invented the special "Sheee-it." I couldn't track it
down, so for the moment it remains a mystery whether Benioff
imagined the pronunciation, whether director Lee dreamed it up,
or whether it was purely Whitlock's genius. Can anyone clear up
the mystery? Also, if any of the Wire brain trust is still reading
us, I'd love to hear how Whitlock and his brilliant profanity
came to the show. Did you cast Whitlock with the explicit hope
of using the "Sheee-it" again, or was it just lucky coincidence
that the role you put him in required cursing?
A couple other bits of delightful Wire-iana. First, reader Brendon
Shank notes an amazing moment of life imitating television: The
Philadelphia Inquirer is running a multipart series about
Philadelphia's homeless, inspired by the gruesome death of a
homeless man. This is delicious because the Inquirer's editor is
none other than Bill Marimow, former Sun managing editor,
nemesis of David Simon, and Simon's supposed model for
managing editor Thomas Klebanow on The Wire. Klebanow, of
course, is supervising the Sun's special homeless investigation,
inspired by the gruesome deaths of homeless men.
And, finally, let me point our readers to an obituary for Omar
Little. Writing for Obit magazine, my friend Michael Schaffer
composed the story the Sun should have written. It begins:
Omar Little, the veteran stick-up artist who
inspired fear and fascination in drug-plagued
neighborhoods across the city, was shot and
killed in a west-side convenience store
yesterday. Police said the assailant remained at
large.
Talk to you next week,
David
Famed for his brazen robberies of area drug
dealers, Mr. Little had retired from what he
called "the game" a year ago, moving to the
Caribbean with a new romantic partner. But he
apparently returned to Baltimore this winter to
seek revenge following the brutal murder of a
beloved business associate …
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Bonus Entry: Where "Sheee-it" Comes From
Posted Tuesday, February 26, 2008, at 3:42 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
David
Special bonus entry today, courtesy of our readers. We're hardly
alone in our worship of Isiah Whitlock Jr.'s portrayal of Clay
Davis and our delight in his trademark "Sheee-it." Reader Kevin
Ray sends us thrilling archival evidence that Whitlock's "Sheeeit" predates The Wire. In Spike Lee's 2002 film The 25th Hour,
Whitlock played DEA agent Amos Flood, who arrests hero
Monty Brogan (played by Edward Norton). Twice during the
movie—when he raids Monty's apartment and when he
interrogates him—Whitlock's Flood utters the barnyard epithet
with his signature drawl. Watch the arrest scene here and the
interrogation scene here.
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 9: The Saddest Scene The Wire Has Ever Given Us
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 6:46 AM ET
How my hair look, Jeff?
This morning I tried to find a copy of David Benioff's novel The
25th Hour—Benioff also wrote the movie screenplay—to see
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
118/124
Omar. And now Snoop. That's too much for any Wire-lover to
bear.
But of course her murder made perfect dramatic sense, and I'm
embarrassed I didn't see it coming. Omar and Snoop were dark
mirrors of each other. They were both street eloquent, but her
eloquence sprang from profanity, his from the absence of it. He
mesmerized with his soulful criminality; she mesmerized with
her soulless murderousness. Omar was gay; I can't remember if
Snoop was ever explicitly identified as gay, but she certainly
suggested it. He was an independent businessmen; she was a
classic organization woman, mindlessly obeying orders. It's also
fitting that their young murderers are mirrors too. Kenard,
conscienceless and psychopathic, kills thoughtful Omar. And
Michael is at war with himself, his sweet soul blackened and
hardened by his sick work: He is having exactly the kind of
battles with himself that Snoop didn't.
David
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 9: Reassessing Marlo's Putative Punk-Assedness
Posted Monday, March 3, 2008, at 10:28 AM ET
David,
Your hair look fine. Now can I just shoot you in the head
already?
Incidentally, wasn't that final goodbye between Michael and
Dukie the saddest scene The Wire has ever given us? Michael
cannot, or won't let himself, remember their gleeful hijinks of
two years ago, because he knows that happiness can never be
reclaimed, so there's no use wallowing in it. And then Dukie
trudges forward into Boschian hell, his first step on his way to
becoming Bubbles.
Snoop's death didn't mark the coldest killing in last night's
episode. Honors go to Kima, who just committed a multiple
homicide—McNulty, Lester, and maybe even Bunk, who knew
what was going on but said nothing. Maybe he wriggles out of
this, but I'm not so sure. And by the way, I am, generally
speaking, pro-snitching in the matter of official police
misconduct, but Kima's testing my beliefs.
They threw that word Dickensian at us again, but the right
literary adjective is Shakespearean. This spectacular episode
vibrated with brilliant speechifying—Bubbles facing up to
Sherrod's death, Snoop musing on how no one "deserves" to
die—and Marlo roaring at the discovery that Omar had been
calling him out on the street. For much of the past two seasons,
Marlo has been a cipher: Snoop and Chris did so much of his
dirty work that it was hard to understand why he was in charge,
instead of them. The jail scene clears up any doubt. As Marlo
rages at the idea that his name was mocked in the street, he
reminds us of the violent intensity that brought him to power.
"Let them know Marlo step to any motherfucker. … My name is
my name!"
Snoop's murder didn't make perfect dramatic sense to me, but
this may be because I was hoping to see her character spun off to
a new, network-television sitcom. Something based on the
Gilmore Girls model but with more Glocks.
("My name is my name" could, in fact, have been the episode's
title, what with the Rumpelstilskin-like excitement when
Bubbles reclaims his given name, Reginald, and finally faces up
to his sorrow about Sherrod.)
Do you still think Marlo's going down? I'm not cashing in my
chips just yet, but I think The Wire's pointing toward exactly the
ending I've expected, given the show's neo-Marxist philosophy:
The only redemption will be individual. We've seen Namond's
salvation; Kima and Bunk will retain their honor; and Bubbles
will save himself. But at the institutional level, everything will
get worse: Marlo and crew will walk free because of the
corrupted investigation, and they will reclaim the streets.
You look good, boy.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
I didn't see her death coming, either, to tell you the truth, and I
should take this moment to revise and amend my previous
comments concerning Marlo and the potential consequences of
his putative punk-assedness. My belief that we would soon see
Marlo's demise was predicated on an assumption (and you
remember, of course, what Felix Unger said about assuming?)
that Marlo knew that Omar was calling him out and that, even
with said knowledge, he refused to meet Omar in the street. It
turns out now that Marlo didn't know he was being called out.
This raises questions about his leadership ability (Chris and
company have obviously built a Bush-like cocoon around the
boss) but not about his, shall we say, manhood.
Clearly—I'm going to regret that clearly, I'm sure, come the 10th
and final episode—Marlo triumphs in the end, just as you
Marxists would have it. Levy will discover the illegal wiretap
and the Stanfield crew will be sprung from jail just as Lester is
led inside. (McNulty, I assume, throws himself off a bridge.)
I found Michael's plight as moving as you did (I actually thought
his parting from his little brother was the saddest thing I saw,
sadder than his breakup with Dukie), but I thought the Bubblesup-Dukie-down pairing a little too neatly TV-ish. Not that I don't
root for Bubbles, mind you. I have a heart.
119/124
By the way, and I know you hate talking about this, but did you
notice that the newspaper subplot has become even more
ridiculous, as if that's possible? Gus hands off the investigation
of Templeton to a presumably sophisticated, just-returned-home
foreign correspondent who promises discretion and then
immediately asks the library for everything Templeton has ever
written!
It is simply impossible to believe that the reporters and editors of
the actual Baltimore Sun, today or 13 years ago, when David
Simon left journalism, could be so comprehensively stupid.
Best,
Jeff
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 9: No Escape
Updated Monday, March 3, 2008, at 11:52 AM ET
Dear Jeff,
You're mad at Kima? She's the one cop who has the courage to
blow the whistle—the courage to do what she asks her witnesses
to do every single day—and you're Stop Snitchin' her? She didn't
push Jimmy off a bridge: He jumped himself, weeks ago. She's
just alerting the coroner.
I knew this week's Sun scenes would be a red flag in front of the
Goldberg horns. The "pull all of Templeton's stories" scene was
agonizingly stupid. At least it was over quickly. (And I must
confess that I'm excited to see how Simon is going to destroy
Gus since it's clear that Gus must fall and Templeton must rise.
On the upside, Gus will then have time to write his longanticipated "Letter From Baltimoringham Jail.")
A few years ago, a brilliant journalist named Adrian Nicole
LeBlanc wrote a book called Random Family about an extended
family of drug dealers, wives, girlfriends, and children in the
Bronx. My favorite scene in the book is when, for reasons I can't
remember, one of the characters gets a windfall or wins a prize,
and the reward is a night out in New York in a limousine.
(Forgive me if I mess up the details slightly—I don't have the
book in front of me.) She and her friends pile into the limo and
set out for Manhattan, but they can't think of anything to do.
They don't know where to eat or even where to go. They end up
driving back to their derelict Bronx neighborhood and hanging
out on the same corner where they always hang out. It's an
unbelievably powerful and grim scene about the way poverty not
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
only closes off avenues of escape, but even stops you from being
able to imagine those avenues.
It seems to me that this is the essential theme of The Wire this
season and perhaps in all five seasons. Again and again, The
Wire's characters are discovering that they have nowhere else to
go and also that they can't even imagine how to leave. Home in
Baltimore is horrific, but the great world beyond is a mystery.
The Season 4 scene of Bunny and the kids in a fancy restaurant
was the most memorable depiction of this, but this season, and
particularly last night's episode, has given us many more
examples. There's Dukie, driven from his home once again.
Michael now must strike out alone into the unknown. Omar
escaped to island paradise but couldn't stay away. Prop Joe had
packed his bags to leave but was murdered before he could walk
out the door. Jimmy—soon to be jobless and womanless—can't
escape himself. Templeton seeks his fortune at the Post but can't
get a job. Even Gus is in some sense a prisoner, unwilling or
unable to find a more congenial newspaper job because he loves
sick old Baltimore too much. Only the schizophrenic, kidnapped
homeless guy is allowed to leave.
You know whom I want working security at my next party?
Those two guys who accompanied Chris to the drug warehouse.
They were the biggest men I've ever seen!
David
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 9: Mixed Feelings About Kima
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 10:34 AM ET
Dear David,
I guess I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy. Wasn't this last episode
also about escape and redemption? Didn't we see Namond on an
upward trajectory? I didn't even mind his hectoring, after-schoolspecial speech or his hair; I was just relieved that he is so
thoroughly out of his mother's house. Does ABC still broadcast
after-school specials, by the way? I fear the reference dates me.
Just as references to Schoolhouse Rock date me; they make me
seem as old as David Simon, for whom Schoolhouse Rock was
obviously very meaningful, or else he wouldn't have lifted their
scripts for Gus' speeches.
Adrian Leblanc's book was, indeed, wonderful. And it was also
true. I assume you have seen the coverage of Love and
Consequences, the "memoir" of a half-white, half-Native
American girl not named Margaret Jones who grew up in South-
120/124
Central, except that she didn't? A writer like that belongs in the
Baltimore Sun newsroom.
And yes, Dr. Snitch, I'll admit to mixed feelings about Kima.
McNulty's great sin here was to try to squeeze more policing
money from the city; he wasn't manufacturing crimes for money
or fame. I know I'm defending the behavior of a character I don't
like in a subplot I think is generally ridiculous, but I can't help
but notice that your great hero, Bunk (or is your great hero Clay
Davis?), didn't snitch.
Maybe it's just that I'm more street than you are. You'll learn
more about my background in what we call the "hood" when
Riverhead publishes my new memoir, about my life as a gay
black stickup artist.
Best,
Jeff
I actually miss Namond's mom, Delonda, who was one of the
great maternal monsters in screen history. She made Joan
Crawford look like the mother of the year. I have a friend who
worked with Sandi McCree, who plays Delonda, and says she's a
lovely woman in real life. I guess that's why they call it "acting."
David
From: Jeffrey Goldberg
To: David Plotz
Subject: Week 9: Bunk, Kima, and Loyalty
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 1:17 PM ET
Dear David,
Yak milk? How did you know about the yak milk? I thought we
kept that a secret.
From: David Plotz
To: Jeffrey Goldberg
Subject: Week 9: Is Namond's the Only Redemption We'll Get?
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 12:56 PM ET
Dear Jeff,
I thought you already wrote that book: Wasn't Prisoners the
story of Omar Goldberg, a gay, black stickup artist obsessed
with Israel's security? (Can you imagine Omar in Israel? That
would be a great short film.) Speaking of Love and
Consequences, excuse me while I pat myself on the back: The
minute I read the Kakutani review in the New York Times last
week, I sent an e-mail to my Slate colleagues with the subject
line "I bet this book is not true."
Back to The Wire: If you had bothered to read my dialogue
entries, you would have noticed that I wrote a long, agonized
paragraph two weeks ago about the Moreland snitching paradox.
But I guess you were too busy hobnobbing in the steam room
with Richard Holbrooke, or bathing in organic yak milk with
Harry Reid, or whatever it is you do over at the Atlantic.
You're right about Namond, of course, though I can't help
feeling that's a pretty thin reed to cling to. After five seasons of
the show, we're allowed one escapee (or maybe two, counting
Bubbles). A couple of readers reminded me that Marlo has also
spent much of this season having trouble leaving Baltimore. He
had that wonderful fish-out-of-water moment at his Caribbean
bank, and he has repeatedly made plans to go to Atlantic City,
N.J., with Chris but never manages to take the trip.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
In re: your Bunk post—don't get like that with me. Or I'm going
to have to ... I don't know. Post a highly negative review of The
Genius Factory on Amazon? I was going to write that I would
"bust a cap in your ass," but only white people talk that way
anymore, and, as one of Washington's foremost gay black
stickup artists, I can't be heard talking like a white guy from
Potomac.
I haven't sufficiently grappled with your previous assertion that
Bunk chose "loyalty over right" by keeping silent on McNulty's
hijinks because I didn't want to enter a debate I knew I couldn't
win, at least not inside the excessively rational, anti-tribal culture
fostered at Slate. And I won't now, except to say that I don't see
the binary you apparently see when you hold up "loyalty" as the
opposite of "right." These men are friends and comrades. Like
most police partners, they have been in mortal danger together,
and they have saved each other's lives. Their connection is
profound. You tend to overlook the flaws of people who have
actually saved your life; this is true in police work and in any
army. Given that McNulty isn't pillaging, robbing, or raping;
given that his crime is well-intentioned; and given that Bunk's
homicide squad benefits from McNulty's scam, I don't think
Bunk made the wrong choice by keeping silent. He should have
counseled his partner more strenuously against such stupidity,
but I would think less of him if he ran to the bosses to rat out his
friend. And, by the way, in real life, I'm not sure a detective in
Kima's position would rat Jimmy out, either.
There, now you know my position on loyalty. Which actually
should serve you well, as an officially sanctioned friend of
Goldberg. I'm even thinking of bringing you along the next time
I hit one of Marlo's stash houses.
121/124
Best,
Jeff
From: June Thomas
To: Jeffrey Goldberg and David Plotz
Subject: Week 9: Snoop Wasn't Talking About a Domestic Shorthair
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 1:41 PM ET
might not be ready for family life yet—she failed the IKEA
test—but she seems to know herself better now: still not ready to
settle down but forging "a connect" with Cheryl's son. Snitching
on McNulty, as I see it, is just another stop on her path to
maturity.
And, of course, there was Omar. He had three gorgeous
boyfriends—Brandon, Dante, and Renaldo—whom he loved,
body and soul. He even put together his own LGBT version of
the James gang. (When Tosha was killed during a robbery in
Season 3, her lover Kimmy's grief was, weirdly, a joy to
witness.) We homosexuals just don't get to see this stuff on
television.
Jeff and David,
I appreciate you letting me stop by the clubhouse. I need the
company, because it's been a tough couple of weeks for the gays.
First, smoking killed Omar—after all, Kenard wouldn't have had
a clean shot if Omar hadn't been so focused on his soft pack—
then Michael shot Snoop. After years in which The Wire gave us
more gay characters than all of the networks combined—and
mostly black gay characters at that—Kima is the only
homosexual left standing. (I refuse to treat Rawls' preposterous
Season 3 gay-bar cameo as anything more than a red herring.)
Unlike The L Word, The Wire never presented a glamorous
fantasy of beautiful people in gorgeous clothes. Unlike 'tween
shows like South of Nowhere, the characters had more pressing
problems than mean moms. And unlike the few shows on
network television that manage to include gay characters, there
were more than two of them on The Wire.
So, thanks, Wire writers. Just promise me you'll never mention
Rawls' secret gay life again.
June
David, yesterday you wondered if Snoop had ever been
"explicitly identified as gay." Like all Marlo's people, she kept
her private life on the down low, but in the final episode of
Season 4, when Bunk said he was "thinking about some pussy,"
she told him, "Me, too." I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about
a domestic shorthair.
Snoop was the first convincing butch lesbian on television—a
no-apologies, cross-dressing bull dyke. I wonder if Felicia
Pearson will ever work again. I know an off-Broadway show
that could desperately use her butch swagger, but her voice is
too small for theater, and she's too street even for that last refuge
of Wire actors, Law and Order. (I've spotted Michael, Clay
Davis, Daniels, and Bubbles recently.)
There have always been complaints that The Wire's writers don't
do well by the women on the show, but for me Kima Greggs has
always been a credible—and likable—character. I was sorry
when she broke up with Cheryl—no more make-out scenes—but
also because the relationship always convinced: Cheryl's
annoyance that Kima should go back on the streets in Season 2
after she almost died in Season 1 was understandable, but so was
Kima's frustration at being smothered. The tension between them
when Cheryl wanted a baby and Kima didn't could happen in
any relationship, as could the painful awkwardness of
maintaining family ties after a breakup. Kima's boozing and
womanizing in Season 3 wasn't as believable, but the show's
writers love nothing more than parallelism, and they needed
Kima to keep McNulty company on his descent to hell. She
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
war stories
Where Are This War's Winter Soldiers?
Why Iraq war veterans have not had much impact on the debate over the
war.
By Ronald R. Krebs
Friday, March 7, 2008, at 7:06 AM ET
Next week, Iraq Veterans Against the War will hold "Winter
Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan"—a four-day extravaganza
designed to draw attention to the failures of U.S. foreign policy,
the dehumanizing effects of counterinsurgency, and the
inadequate provision of veterans' benefits. Yet the event, meant
to recall the famous hearings of 1971 at the height of the
Vietnam War, highlights how little Iraq war veterans have
featured in the national political debate over the war.
The Iraq war is shaping up, alongside the faltering economy, as
one of the two pillars of the upcoming presidential election. That
election will feature a decorated veteran of Vietnam, in the
presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who is devoted
to seeing the war through to "victory," against a nonveteran, be it
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, who wants to scale back the
U.S. presence in Iraq. Still, while their predecessors who served
in Vietnam lent themselves to iconic images of wartime protest,
Iraq war veterans have so far been consigned to the margins—
122/124
and seem likely to remain there. The U.S. military and U.S.
society have changed a great deal since Vietnam, and IVAW has
consequently found itself on the sidelines.
troops. Were veterans to come forward in large numbers, they
might enjoy unusual credibility with the U.S. public, and
impugning their patriotism would be difficult.
At its height, Vietnam Veterans Against the War boasted more
than 30,000 members, and it had an articulate and recognizable
spokesman in John Kerry. Its 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation,
and especially the subsequent Senate hearings, rightly figure
prominently in any historical account of the war and its domestic
politics. Veterans were crucial in undercutting the war's
legitimacy, and the Nixon administration was acutely sensitive
to their presence at anti-war rallies.
Nevertheless, Iraq war veterans have been shunted aside for
three reasons. First, veterans have shown even less interest in
protesting the war than has the public at large. This is largely the
legacy of the end of the draft. The installation of the allvolunteer force in 1973 over time produced armed forces that
were less representative of society at large—racially but also
politically. The officer corps is now composed
disproportionately of self-identified political conservatives and
Republican partisans, to the point that a brouhaha erupted in the
1990s over the "civil-military gap," with some worrying
(thankfully baselessly) that a coup might even be in the offing.
The Iraq war has opened up an unprecedented partisan divide,
and Republican support has been remarkably resilient. While
there have been signs of mounting discontent—including
surprisingly large active-military contributions to Ron Paul, the
only Republican presidential candidate to oppose the war—the
current crop of veterans is less fertile soil for the IVAW's plow
than for its Vietnam-era counterpart. Put simply, veterans have
been quiet partly because many are strong partisans who, at least
until quite recently, have been committed to the administration,
the war, or both.
If Iraq war veterans have had less political impact, it's certainly
not for lack of trying. Formed in 2004, the IVAW has produced
no latter-day Kerry, and as of late February it had only 800
members, despite the modern communications that have made it
easier to contact potential members. Only some 2,100 activeduty soldiers, Reserve members, and guardsmen have signed its
petition for withdrawal from Iraq. And it has received little press
coverage, even as public opinion has turned against the war: A
search of Lexis-Nexis turned up a mere 128 references to "Iraq
Veterans Against the War" in "Major U.S. and World
Publications" in the three and a half years since its founding.
This is partly related to the struggles and missteps of the antiwar movement as a whole, but there are also reasons distinctive
to today's anti-war veterans.
We might have expected veterans to matter even more to the
domestic debate over the Iraq war than to that over Vietnam.
The Vietnam-era military was widely seen as suffering from a
severe crisis of discipline. Especially in rear areas, the armed
forces could not escape America's deep divides over race and
class. Fragging—attacks on superior officers, often by
fragmentation hand grenades but also commonly by means that
might be mistaken for "friendly fire"—reached unprecedented
levels, with hundreds of incidents between 1968 and 1972. Drug
use and addiction were rampant among U.S. forces stationed in
Vietnam and elsewhere. Yet Vietnam veterans, witnesses to the
war's misdeeds and folly, remained voices of moral authority.
By the mid-1980s, the U.S. military had again become the most
respected institution in the land. According to a March 2007
Harris Poll, nearly 50 percent of Americans had "a great deal of
confidence" in military leaders; the heads of "organized religion"
and Supreme Court justices clocked in at under 30 percent, the
White House at just over 20 percent, the press at only 12
percent, and Congress at a mere 10 percent. In contrast to
Vietnam, where the war's falling fortunes were paralleled in
public opinion toward the military, historically sky-high
numbers of Americans have steadfastly clung to "very
favorable" views of the armed forces. This is partly because,
despite lapses, especially the regular Army has proved fairly
disciplined in-theater and at home, and because politicians, no
matter their stand on the war, have universally paid tribute to the
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Second, if veterans' will has been lacking, the political
opportunities for protest have been few. On the one hand,
counterinsurgency is a cruel business, in which the brutalization
of civilians is, sadly, hardly exceptional. Although many
Americans shrugged off revelations that U.S. soldiers were
murdering, raping, and otherwise mistreating noncombatants in
Vietnam, the disclosures transformed the nagging concerns of
others, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., into fullthroated opposition. And these incidents created a special
opening for veterans to bear witness against military
transgressions and thrust them to prominence within the anti-war
movement. Iraq has, of course, seen its share of U.S. violations
of the principle of noncombatant immunity, but the scale of
abuse has paled compared with Vietnam. Moreover, while the
armed forces have predictably covered up abuses and impeded
investigation, they have also taken serious and sincere steps to
learn from their mistakes, and they have instituted standard
operating procedures to limit the number of civilians killed and
injured. The Army's new counterinsurgency doctrine has taken
the winning of Iraqi hearts and minds seriously and has
mandated more discriminate uses of force. On the other hand,
while the Iraq war has stretched the volunteer army's manpower
structures and has entailed mind-boggling economic and other
costs, the United States has deployed only between one-third and
one-fourth of the forces it sent to Vietnam, and casualty rates in
Iraq remain comparatively low relative to that earlier military
conflict.
123/124
Finally, the broader political environment has been less
hospitable to veteran protest. Since the late 1960s, the United
States has become more "liberal"—not in the usual political
sense, but rather with regard to its conception of citizenship. The
United States has shifted toward a culture of rights, away from
its "republican" heritage in which the performance of civic duty
was prized. As I have argued elsewhere, soldiers and veterans
can make substantial political headway when the citizenship
discourse is heavily republican; this, for example, explains why
Druze Arabs, who serve in the Israel Defense Forces, have been
able to garner disproportionate attention and resources in Israel,
a Jewish state that historically has discriminated against its Arab
citizens. A liberal political culture undercuts veterans' capacity
to make unusually weighty claims on the polity.
Where, then, are this war's Winter Soldiers? Many are in
permanent hibernation: They are committed political
conservatives dismissive of evidence that the war cannot be
won, fearful of the consequences of even a gradual U.S.
withdrawal, eager for signs of a thaw in Iraq's frozen communal
politics. Others are on ice, still awaiting an opening to bring their
personal testimonials to bear on American political debate—an
opening that will likely never arise.
In general, veterans are a vanishing force in American politics.
Notwithstanding the attention devoted to Iraq-war-veteran
candidates in the 2006 elections, the 109th Congress has 13 fewer
veterans than the 108th and 14 fewer than the 107th, and there are
proportionally fewer veterans in Congress than in society at
large. There is little evidence that veteran status matters much to
contemporary elections, despite the post-9/11 focus on
security—this has been true of both congressional and
presidential politics. In this sense at least, John McCain
represents the past of American politics, not its future.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
124/124
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
124/124