Expelled

Ben Stein is playing at being a sort of right wing Michael Moore in Expelled, a film that whines because, in effect, people don't want their children to be taught creationism. Obviously marketed to the religious set (I like the not-so-subtle bleeding cross for the X) the film doesn't have to have a wide release to make money. It can be shown in churches and the like, and the DVD release will probably do well. The success of the Left Behind books and Passion Of Christ demonstrated the existence of a huge market for something like this.

As or the film itself, the hallmarks of modern conservatism are all there: carefully crafted propaganda that refuses to deal with the actual issues (arguing creationism is a sure loser, so they argue for "free speech" instead); casting themselves as victims of some powerful, elitist organization ("Big Science" actually sounds funny when you look at it, especially considering that "Big Science" is all but entirely owned by Big Industry, but Big Industry has Big Money Friends, and so is sacrosanct in a right wing film); and a core angry irrationality that wouldn't look twice at genuine reason if you plated it in gold and crusted it with diamonds. But they don't have to be reasonable to make this film and make money out of it -- that's the beauty of it all. They have a target audience that wants to be told certain things whether those things are true or not, that wants, as all of us do, to have its world view affirmed, and is willing to pay for it. And so this film. And there will almost certainly be more like it, made to appeal to different segments of the conservative public, more clearly defining the boundaries of their own world, a world that is 10,000 years old, a world that was created in six days, and so on.

I'm reminded of George Orwell's words to the effect that technology, far from bringing people closer together, actually puts up barriers between us. More people are made ignorant by the radio, for example, than are educated by it; I can find more palpable lies in the average issue of Time than I can verifiable truths. We're beginning to use sophisticated technology to shut our borders down; cable television is becoming a screaming contest between the deranged and the greedy; and of course, our military has become so powerful that we don't really need to talk to other peoples. All this isolates, isolates both the country from the rest of the world, and different sub-populations within the country from each other. You can talk to a devout Christian of a certain type and wonder if you grew up on the same planet, let alone in the same country, so different are the basic beliefs groups live by, and films like Expelled are going to exacerbate -- are made to exacerbate -- that situation. It isn't 1936 in this country yet, but when I look around me, I don't feel we're all that far away, either. The world Orwell was writing about eventually recovered its sanity, but only after many millions of lives were lost. We seem to be losing that sanity again, and given that the world we're in now has atomic weapons (another example of technology driving wedges between people) this recovery could be expensive indeed.

The WSJ does it -- again.

Not in Time, or Newsweek, or the NYT. Nope, only the Wall Street Journal talks about stuff like this:

Given McCain’s reputation for reaching across the aisle and his daily pledge to treat Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with respect, Washington Wire was a little surprised to hear McCain using the same language.

“One thing I’m not any good at predicting is the outcome of Democrat elections,” he said Tuesday aboard his bus, dubbed the Straight Talk Express. A day earlier, he had mentioned his “Democrat friends” to a Cleveland-area audience.

Asked aboard his bus about the “ic,” he replied, “I’m sorry, I usually say Democratic. They prefer Democratic, so I try to say Democratic… It offends some members of their party, so I’ll say Democratic if that’s what makes them feel better.”

Yep, it's minor stuff in one way, but it really should be talked about for several reasons, not the least of which is McCain's claim about what a straight-shooting standup guy he is. And of course, it highlights the death grip that wingnuttery has on conservative political discourse: a sitting president went around the country pulling that childish stunt in a desperate attempt to score votes, and now McCain thinks it's a winning play as well.

Now that Murdoch is running the WSJ, I wonder how long you'll be able to see things like this anywhere. Because of the insanity of its editorial pages, the Journal enjoyed the status of a right-wing bastion. This gave it cover against the charge of "liberal media," and along with the commitment of the Bancroft family to maintaining the paper's tradition of excellence, allowed the actual reporting it did to be the best in the country -- honest and fearless in a way that no other national publication has been in almost 20 years. Murdoch doesn't do, or tolerate, honest and fearless. I'm really going to miss that paper.

A bunch of kooks

We aren't a bunch of kooks! We aren't, we aren't! At least so says Jonah Goldberg:

In the next few days, there will be a wave of liberals — Frank Rich comes particularly to mind — who will use WFB's memory to beat up on today's conservatives. Ramesh and I wrote a piece about this tendency last year. Liberals today bemoan how wonderful the conservatives of yesteryear were solely to lament how terrible they are today. The recent bout of Goldwater nostalgia on the left was a perfect example. The strange new respect liberals have for Ronald Reagan would be another. And you can be sure they will use Buckley to that effect too.

A quick point about Goldberg's -- all too typical -- word choice: the mean liberals are going to "beat up" on the poor, hapless "conservatives." Not attack, not compare unfavorably, not try to beat up -- they're just going to go out there and do it, by printing a few words in a column. And poor Jonah is just going to have to take it. Maybe if Jonah cries harder and louder (is it possible?), the mean bully Frank Rich will leave him enough money to buy a cookie for lunch.

But what interests me is the overall lack of a real argument here. Goldberg doesn't say exactly how the liberals are going to "beat him up" using Buckley. That the movement he's a part of is radically different from the one Buckley helped to create, that Buckley abjured the parts of that movement -- bombing Muslims -- nearest and dearest to Goldberg's heart can't be discussed; neither can the fact that Goldwater himself said the Republicans had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks". Or at least, these things can't be discussed by Goldberg, who wants that particular carton of rotten eggs left unopened. Anyone who does discuss them is waved away with the phrase "beating up conservatives."

Had Jonah been serious about this he would have explained why thoughtful criticisms of modern conservatism using Buckley as a foil are wrong, or even that they just overstate the case. But he didn't (couldn't?). Instead, he ignores all that. What he does say is Buckley was an "American hero" who faced "vicious criticism from the left" but in the end, succeeded anyway, despite "unrelenting opposition." It's pretty obvious that this is how Goldberg sees himself: a victim -- he's always the victim -- of "unrelenting opposition" from the "vicious left" who nonetheless perseveres and will, in 30 years, be seen as an "American hero", just like Buckley, and Reagan, and Goldwater before him. And maybe he's right. I just don't remember any of those men crying all the time.

Words fail...

Proof that the NFL doesn't place a high premium on Wonderlic scores:





I've sat through some pretty awful job interviews, and this one ranks right down there. "I'm a hard worker, I have a good work ethic." Apparently he's not a hard enough worker to put at least a few rote answers to obvious questions in place before announcing his campaign. I guess we don't have to worry about his commitment to the job, or his understanding of how important a job being a U.S. Representative is. Hey, the founders wanted citizen legislators....

Too much information

This is an unfortunate side-effect of the electronic dissemination of information, particularly in a decentralized environment like the internet:

This analysis, passed along by GWU's John Sides, confirms what we've been hearing anecdotally: Early voting in Texas does not bode well for Hillary Clinton.

When you had only two media (TV and radio) capable of instantly broadcasting information, like an exit poll, you could install gatekeepers. And in fact, once the networks realized they could be impacting elections, they made it a policy not to release the information until voting was concluded. Now we have stuff like this, somebody's speculation about some data a week before the actual vote, and -- thanks to the internet -- it's out there just as if Walter Cronkite had announced it on the evening news. Maybe not to as many people, but that's coming, too. How do you install gatekeepers among the entire population of computer users? You can't. Obviously, you're going to have to tighten controls over the gatherers of this information, if you decide to do something about it at all -- which I'm in favor of. Let people vote, then count the votes. This stuff -- predicting an electoral outcome using someone's rough analysis of a rough collection of data -- is absurd.

I don't understand why nobody in the print world had thought about this and formulated some kind of policy. Or maybe they did, and this was the result of their decision. Either way, it's the sort of thing that deserves public debate, and I ain't seen any public debate about it.

*Addendum. Now that I think about it, I think it was people in West Coast states complaining about exit polls cheapening the value of their votes that made the networks adopt this policy. So another way of looking at it is a market-based restraint of trade self correction. Adam Smith would be proud. Anyway, the overall point still stands about the internet being too efficient a distributor sometimes, because people in California can complain all they want, and people in New Jersey are still going to publish what they please, as long as they have the information in the first place. Just don't give it to them. I can't think of any reason the number of absentee ballots/pre-votes cast needs to be released before the actual election.

How long before McCain realizes he isn't subject to the Clinton rules, and can indulge in whatever slams and cheap shots he likes without repercussion? My own guess is he'll publicly decry the nastiness, but essentially shrug and say he can't do anything about it, and be lauded for his principled impotence. It'll be easy for him to do, since this sort of stuff is the absolute staple of a major part of the Republican base, and would go on with him or without him -- but he could still do something about it, if he chose. But he won't choose. If he starts getting his ass handed to him he'll even get nasty himself, and maybe -- maybe -- then he'll be criticized some, but only because he's getting his ass handed to him -- journalists are pack animals, and love piling on the loser in a fight like this.

Chimp-O-Matic

I have this "Chimpomatic" thing on my home page; it randomly displays a Bushism whenever the page is loaded. It's there not because I like making fun of Bush -- never that -- but because it actually gives insight, I think, into the man himself:




You can take the words and actions of almost any public figure you want out of context and make him or her look like an idiot, and in fact, that's exactly what's happening with lots of the "Bushisms." What interests me about them, though, is that I think they reveal something about the man himself. Cull the ones that happen when he's searching for the right words and picks the wrong words instead, from the ones where he simply screws up, and the former sound like they come from an actor who's forgotten the script, and can't continue because he doesn't really feel the part. Here's an example, taken (almost) at random:

"I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike. ... I believe we ought to say there is a different alternative than the culture that is proposed by people like Miss Wolf in society. ... And, you know, hopefully, condoms will work, but it hasn't worked."—Meet the Press, Nov. 21, 1999

No one who actually cared about the issue of teen and accidental pregnancy, or the broader issue of abortion, would talk like this. Even if you slipped up and lost your train of thought, which happens to all of us at times, you would still have thought about the issue enough so that you had a sort of private script to call on -- the right, or at least rightish, words would come out naturally because they, or the sentiments they express, are genuinely your own. With Bush, they aren't really his own sentiments (and keep in mind that abortion is supposed to be an issue that the Christian Bush cares about deeply) , so he ends up blurting out nonsense, with a complete absurdity -- probably a half-remembered bit of preparation ("Remember to say that condoms don't work, George") -- tacked on at the end. I doubt Bush is all that stupid, but he isn't all that bright, either, and he clearly isn't bright enough to overcome a lack of belief in the principles and values of the movement he is supposed to lead. The result is stuff like the Chimp-o-matic, and a country that has lost its way after seven years of political, not just verbal, Bushisms.