Obama Will Win in 2012

I thought it would be fun to throw out a ridiculous prediction. Obviously I don't know what the next two years will hold, but based on everything we know now, I'd place my bet on reelection for Barry.

If we continue the trajectory we're on now, the next two years will see significant economic recovery and a little bit of job recovery. This is good news for an incumbent presidential candidate, despite how little control he/she has over them. Recovering auto giant GM will benefit from this. China's economy is going to continue to grow, and as it does, so will its demand for vehicles. One day soon China will be the biggest auto market in the world, and right now GM is its top-selling car company. So I think in the next two years, the GM bailout is really going to start paying off, which will assuage much of the negative American sentiment against it and Obama by extension. Economic recovery will also soften hearts regarding the stimulus package. Opposition to the health care reform law will continue to decline.

What about the Tea Party? I have already explained my belief that the Tea Party is a creature of the recession. It is motivated by a hatred for government that stems from fear over our broken economy. It's also completely disorganized. It has no agreed-on leaders, no structure or organization, and no statement of beliefs. It is not a "party" at all. Lastly, it's overwhelmingly Republican. All the Tea Partier's claims that their movement is an independent, libertarian group of free-thinkers with no party affiliations are hogwash. Eighty percent of Tea Party supporters describe themselves as Republican. Combine all these facts together with a recovering economy and job market, and I think we're going to see the dissolution of the Tea Party. The hardcore, far-right libertarians will return to their gun caves and the rest will merge back with the GOP. My bet is that by 2012, the Tea Party will have lost its bite and the media will have grown tired of them.

The most significant influence the Tea Party will have is this November. It is obvious that the Democrats are going to lose big; I doubt Nancy Pelosi will keep her job. The Tea Party's influence will be to replace moderate and old-school Republicans with young, crazy, radical, far-right ones. Can't say I'm happy about this. In the end though, the Tea Party will do nothing but help the GOP get elected; people who claim otherwise underestimate the GOP establishment. Old, rich, cunning politicians who know how to harness populist sentiment against government are what the GOP is all about. They've done it before, they'll do it again, and it's already started. By December it will be common knowledge that the GOP is going to swallow the Tea Party whole.

Getting back to Obama's reelection, let's consider who will run against him. Sarah Palin will (has anyone ever more obviously prepared for an election bid?), but she'll lose in the primaries. I think Newt Gingrich will too, and I think he'll do well (he might even get my vote, we'll see), but I'm not confident he can beat Obama. Mitt Romney will probably be there, maybe Bobby Jindal, probably Tim Pawlenty (here's a good list for more). But when push comes to shove, I just don't think any of these folks will have what it takes. Two years with more control in Congress may not serve the new party of "no" as well as they hope.

In order for that to be true, Obama will have to make some changes. A split Congress will mean he will have to slow his breakneck legislative pace of his first two years and make some serious concessions to the Republicans while still appeasing the liberal establishment. This will be difficult. A DC friend of mine thinks there is a small chance the Democrats could nominate Hillary as their candidate in 2012. Obama's going to find himself between a rock and a hard place many times with Congress over the next two years. If he can manage to achieve the bipartisanship he spoke so eloquently of in his campaign, he will win big.

I know, big "if." But there are a lot of big ifs here. We could experience the dreaded double-dip recession, or a visionary, charismatic, conservative candidate could arise. But frivolous speculation is what blogs are for. I'm excited to see what develops.

Dispatches from the Edge of the World

The Heroine is back in Haiti for six months, meeting the world's deep hunger with her deep gladness. She is writing regularly about her experiences here, on her blog. Every time I read her words they lift up my eyes from my life and shift my perspective. They remind me of sacred things. I encourage you to read with me. We could all afford to look up a little more often.

Touched by an iPhone Ad

By now you have probably seen this iPhone 4 ad. If you haven't, you need to.



Apple just never ceases to amaze me. They recently became the number one tech company in the world (as I was politely informed by my buddy Josh Fraser when I stated otherwise), and they continue to defy everything everyone in the tech world claims is crucial. Openness with your customers? Apple has no blog and no twitter account. Openness to multiple platforms? Apple doesn't allow flash to run on any of their mobile devices. Openness to developers? Apple arbitrarily kicks apps out of the iTunes store which it doesn't like. Wealth of features? Apple cuts features in favor of design and simplicity. Low prices and adapting your product to widen your customer base? Apple keeps its prices high and uses branding to market itself to a cult of selective buyers.

But that just scratches the surface, really. There's the epic personal story of the maniacal visionary Steve Jobs, the Microsoft/Apple rivalry (which has now been reborn as the Apple/Google rivalry), the music revolution brought on by the iPod and iTunes, the cell phone revolution brought on by the iPhone and App Store, and of course, their masterful marketing and PR. Motorola is putting out ads for geeky robot phones which are "racehorse duck-taped to a scud missle fast" (which would never in a million years appeal to the average female), while Palm Pre creeps us the hell out with their ballerina in need of an exorcism. Then along comes Apple and says, hey, why not just show how to use the phone? In fact, why not show how our product can enable incredibly touching connections to happen, like a soldier getting to experience his wife's ultrasound from overseas? The first time I saw the ad above, I could not believe how emotionally involved I had just become with a television commercial. Like everyone in the television age, I am trained to ignore advertising. Breaking past this and actually affecting me was no small feat. I may have never owned a Mac, but I was impressed.

I don't doubt that Google will win Apple's new rivalry in the way Microsoft won their old one—one day soon Android phones will far outnumber iPhones. But the great thing about Apple is that won't matter.

From the Fox News Propaganda Mill: Due Process Is Un-American

Last week the great Drew Norris shared the following Fox News clip with me, in which anchor Gregg Jarrett questions the Justice Department's decision to hire Tony West, a lawyer who has defended members of the American Taliban in court, to represent the government in its suit over Arizona's controversial immigration law. The obvious subtext (it's practically text) in Jarrett's mocking questions appalled and angered me. It serves as a prime example of why I believe Fox News is the greatest source of propaganda this country holds.

Let me see if I can break down what's happening here.

Obviously, obviously, everything talk show host Mark Levine says in this interview is correct (which is unheard of for a talk show host—I need to track this guy down). There is nothing more American than the Constitution, and nothing more Constitutional than due process and Habeas Corpus. There is absolutely nothing wrong with West defending the Taliban in court or the Obama Administration okaying the Justice Department hiring him to prosecute Arizona.

What is equally obvious is that Fox News is attempting (with little subtlety) to convince its viewers that Tony West representing the Taliban was un-American, that Arizona's new immigration law is completely appropriate, and that Obama's choice of West (although it was actually the Justice Department's decision) reveals Obama's soft approach to terrorism, illegal immigration, and the federal government infringing on states' rights. Let me enumerate a few ways this comes across.

1. Jarrett calls West "a member of the so-called 'Gitmo 9,' a group of DOJ attorneys who represented terror suspects before they then joined the Department of"—and then, snarkily—"Justice." The people who "so call" these lawyers the "Gitmo 9" are actually far-right bloggers like Michelle Malkin and an organization called Keep America Safe, headed by Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol. Keep America Safe released a repulsive ad which asks "whose values do [these lawyers] share?" with a video of Osama Bin Laden playing in the background. Fox News (which released the identities of nine lawyers after Attorney General Eric Holder refused to release more than two of them, though this information was publicly available) uses the term "Gitmo 9" simply to slander the lawyers further. No one is calling them that but Fox and its cohorts.

2. Jarett's first question is "A lawyer who defended a terrorist now leading a case against a state trying to protect its citizens; is that appropriate?" Almost every word in this question is spin. Fox News blatantly tells the viewer that the government is suing Arizona for trying to protect its citizens, which is ridiculous; the suit is about the state infringing into federal jurisdiction. Jarrett also feeds viewer the idea that a lawyer defending a terrorist is inappropriate, as if it isn't historically and Constitutionally American. Levine wisely responds with the example of John Adams defending the British soldiers who perpetrated the Boston Massacre.

3. Notice how Fox News chooses to call Tony West the "'American Taliban Lawyer" in their title to underscore everything that's said. To Fox, West isn't a lawyer who defended the Taliban in court, he's a "Taliban lawyer." Also note how the anchor makes a throwaway comment about the "vast majority" of the public supporting the Arizona law (the actual number is 59%). Here Fox News is again spoon-feeding its audience what it wants them to believe: Obama's lawyer is a terrorist sympathizer and Obama is putting his agenda over the rights, wisdom, and desire of the American people.

4. Jarrett asks if the decision to use Tony West will "feed the impression that Obama doesn't take U.S. security seriously." This cunningly states without stating that such an impression exists and that this decision supports it. Or more directly, that Obama doesn't take U.S. security seriously.

5. To distract from Levine's excellent response to this ridiculous question, Fox plays some footage of what we are apparently supposed to believe are illegal immigrants crossing the border over his response. Nice. Then Jarrett comes back in to dismiss Levine's simple, straightforward point that the President and everyone else in the Federal Government is sworn to uphold the Constitution by saying, "It would be boring if we debated the legality of this thing." Another queue to the viewer—"Don't bother listening to this guy's 'Constitution' mumbo jumbo, it's boring." Far from being boring, I would argue that a decent news organization would consider discussions about the Constitution appropriate for a news analysis segment like this one purports to be.

6. Jarrett says that some people will inevitably label West "un-American, right or wrong, for defending a terrorist trying to destroy America." Again, this is spoon-feeding the viewer the idea that defending a terrorist in court is un-American. The phrase "trying to destroy America" is simply used to stir up emotion against West. The phrase "right or wrong" is used to create doubt where there should be none: there is nothing more basic in our Constitution than the idea that prisoners have a right to due process. If you're wondering who will "inevitably label West un-American," it's the people on Fox News: Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and so on. Fox is simply reporting on its own beliefs and downplaying those who question them.

7. After Jarrett asks if picking such a "controversial" lawyer is "unwise," Fox News flashes up a profile of West displaying the fact that West "helped raise record $65M for Obama in 2008," subtly implying that the reason for Obama's supposed lack of wisdom is some sort of quid pro quo.

8. Throughout the interview, Jarrett describes the DOJ's decision to hire Tony West as inappropriate, unwise, controversial, and a distraction. The message couldn't be clearer.

9. What really gets me about all this is how it occurs smack dab in the middle of Fox News' "news" programming. Back in October, Fox was getting a lot of heat for its "fair and balanced" claim in light of the nightly attacks on the White House coming from Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, and what have you. Fox responded by delineating between their "news" and "opinion" sections. Yes, they claimed, the "opinion" programs on Fox were part and parcel neoconservative, but the "news" section was unbiased, fact-checked, objective, straight-up journalism. This video is a perfect example of how that just isn't true. Fox has a narrative to sell, and it does so in every minute it airs.

10. Is it worth mentioning that the DOJ under Bush also hired attorneys to defend terrorists in court? Probably not.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, please stop watching Fox News.

Update 7/24/2010:

I'd like to post a little clarifying addendum.

As my good friend Ben reminded me in the comments, I do not actually think it's so terrible for a reporter to choose a side when he or she is reporting on an issue. It's obvious that hearing two folks debate an issue can give us a deeper, more holistic understanding of it. In fact, it sometimes frustrates me when reporters hold back and do not voice the common responses their audience might have to a fact or opinion being stated. I'm not sure a 100% completely objective media is possible, or if it was that we'd even want it.

Here is my issue with the clip. First, the arguments the anchor was using were in such basic contradiction the Constitution that they struck me as being rooted in a specific message. As such, they were dishonest. Second, the arguments used emotional calls and clever turns of phrase to support this message, which solidified them as propaganda in my mind. Third, this type of question and this message is consistently presented on Fox as a "fair and balanced," "tell it like it is" perspective, while Fox simultaneously accuses other networks of having an agenda. This is also dishonest.

I hope that helps clear things up a bit. At the very least it makes me feel a better.

Top 5 Things Which Have Recently Blown My Mind

1. Often entrepreneurs in impoverished areas cannot get loans because banks can make a higher rate of return by lending money to the government to pay off its debt instead.

2. Drowning doesn't look like drowning. (via Carolyn)

3. Drinking coffee doesn't make you more alert, it just staves of your caffeine withdrawal symptoms. (That does it, I'm never becoming a coffee drinker.)

4. Many of North Korea's fans at the World Cup games were actually Chinese "volunteers" hand-picked by the North Korean government. Their applause was directed by a conductor. (via Harrison)

5. Some historical symbols don't actually mean what you think. Guy Fawkes didn't just want to destroy government—he wanted to replace it with theocracy. Thomas Paine didn't only seek independence from the oppressive British government—he also advocated policies similar to Social Security and the Child Tax Credit.

By the way, just as an FYI, I've removed a bunch of people from my "Friends" list in the sidebar who I don't think have ever commented on this blog. I wanted to prune the list and this seemed like an easy way to do it.

How the Internet Saved Culture

It may be difficult to remember life before the internet, but I'd like to take you back to 1995 for a moment. Though our current economic crisis may make us long for the prosperity and optimism of the mid-90's, American culture was being eaten alive. Globalization, deregulation, and prosperity had enormous benefits, but they also contributed to a market which favors large, multi-national corporations—and large, multi-national corporations love one thing above all others: hits.

Hit records. Blockbuster movies. Bestselling books. The music industry was controlled by a handful of companies desperate for hit machines. It is likely that artists like Bruce Springsteen, whose first two albums were commercial flops, could never have made it in 1995.

But it wasn't just the corporate titans who wanted hits. Local businesses wanted them too. In a record store, every record carried has to sell a certain amount of copies to stay on the shelf. A movie has to sell a certain amount of tickets to be worth being picked up by a theater. The economics of scarcity and the free market were tightening their death grip on anything outside the mainstream.

Then along comes an inventive software engineer named Tim Berners-Lee whose humble side-project changed the world. Suddenly online retailers like Amazon and CD Baby no longer have to worry about a book or record earning its keep. Shelf space becomes too cheap to meter. And when that happens, there's no reason not to carry something unpopular, as long as it sells once.

Which brings us to the idea of "the long tail." (As usual, the ideas in this post are not new, and they are not mine. But maybe you've never considered them before.) The long tail is an idea expressed in a groundbreaking 2004 Wired article by editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who later expanded it into a book and a blog. The idea concentrates around two facts. One, for any large media store, 99% of the top 100,000 titles (or more) will be sold at least once a month. For Rhapsody's music service for instance, every one of the top 400,000 tracks are downloaded once a month. Two, the market for titles that are not in the top 100,000 is bigger than the market for titles that are. What does this mean? It means if you can get over the economics of scarcity (not having enough room on your shelves for 400,000 titles), you can make a lot of money on things that aren't terribly popular.

Which is how the internet saved culture. No longer is Nicholas Sparks forcing Gabriel García Márquez out of bookstores. No longer does it cost record stores (well, online record stories) to carry little-known bands who sell one copy a month. No longer do folks with an affinity for Soviet-era calculators or toilet seat art have nowhere to turn to buy and sell their wares, thanks to eBay and craigslist and countless online stores. The internet has made it possible for unconventional culture to thrive.

Here in 2010, six years after Chris Anderson first wrote about the long tail, it is so ubiquitous we don't even recognize it. The music industry has experienced a cultural coup. The music revolution has happened, and media conglomerates no longer dictate what we read and who we listen to as they used to. The world we used to dream about, where any musician or author or artist could find a market for his or her art if one existed is upon us. The free and instant flow of information has liberated us from the titans of industry. I love the free market as much as the next guy, but it alone has not brought us this liberation. Society-bending technology has transformed the culture-crushing free market machine of the mid-90s into the culture-creating phenomenon of the early 10s.

Image: used with permission from Laurel Daunis-Allen

Resenting Others' Ignorance

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." Kurt Vonnegut

My pride just took a kick to the gut... because this is unquestionably me.

Razing Arizona: My Breakup with John McCain

It was a match made in heaven, when you think about it, me and John McCain. I can't stand the conservative talk radio and Fox News pundits, and they can't stand John McCain; heck, Anne Coulter said if McCain won the nomination, she'd vote for Hillary. Last week The National Review published an editorial listing all the many reasons why John McCain is no conservative and doesn't deserve the paper's endorsement, and many of them are reasons I love the guy. He wrote powerful campaign finance legislation, which the neoconservative Supreme Court struck down in January. He proposed immigration reform legislation that included a guest worker program and a pathway to citizenship. He supported environmental reform. He fought Big Tobacco. He supported rights for detainees and railed against the use of torture, positions he no doubt formed years ago when he was tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese after refusing to be sent home from a POW camp without his fellow soldiers (The National Review, by the way, calls his torture rhetoric "irresponsible"). Through all of this he struggled and fought for bipartisanship, an ideal our current political establishment equates with weakness.

But if you read this blog during election season, you know it didn't last. When it came time to make his second shot at the presidency, McCain retreated from the moderate conservative values he was known for. He hired a cheerleader from Alaska to give a bunch of folksy lip-service she didn't believe to his "maverickness" and veered right into crazy base world. Out with sensible immigration policy, in with Joe the Plumber. It was sad to watch.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop after the election. It got much, much worse. McCain has since stated he never called himself a Maverick. He's been tweeting to reality TV stars about Obama's tax on tanning beds. He claimed to have been "misled" about the bank bailout (an issue he stopped his presidential campaign to fly to Washington and weigh in on). But worst of all, he's come out in staunch support of Arizona's new immigration law.

There is little question in my mind that Arizona's new immigration law is an affront to civil liberty and a violation of federal law against racial profiling. The new law requires Arizona law enforcement officers to ask anyone they please for proof of citizenship if they believe there is "reasonable suspicion" the individual may be in the country illegally. It requires immigrants to carry their registration papers with them at all times. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's assertion that "reasonable suspicion" will not lead to racial profiling is as tenuous as it is naive. The transfer of power from the rights of the people to government control brought about by this legislation is extreme to the point of being un-American. I don't think Jon Stewart was far off when he related the new law's requirements to free black men and women having to carry their papers with them before the Civil War.

The Obama administration agrees. On Tuesday, the Justice Department sued the state of Arizona, accusing the new immigration law of being unconstitutional, violating federal law, disrupting immigration enforcement, and opening the door to harassment by the police. Inexplicably, John McCain, the man who once fought for a sensible, centrist immigration reform policy is backing the state law against the DOJ's suit. His office released this statement: "The American people must wonder whether the Obama administration is really committed to securing the border when it sues a state that is simply trying to protect its people by enforcing immigration law." 

And that my friends, is the last straw. McCain has abandoned too many of his principles to champion his mavericky centrism any longer. I called his support for this law "inexplicable," but the truth is it tragically explainable. John McCain is facing re-election in November, and nothing plays better with Arizona Republicans than tough immigration policy. In a wonderful NYT article which hails him as "this year's maverick," McCain's dear friend Lindsey Graham said as much: "John's got a primary. He's got to focus on getting re-elected. I don't want my friend to get beat."

What happened? McCain once said of his bipartisan immigration bill, "They tell me my poll rate has plummeted over this, but I’m a big boy; I can take it." Where is that McCain? Where is the McCain who authored Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life? A man who once endured torture is now letting a few angry Arizona voters get to him? Come on, John, you're better than this! You've spent twenty-eight years in Congress. Would it be such a terrible end to your political career if you went down fighting for what you believe in? I've always felt that was more your style, anyway.

Arizona legislators, for their part, cannot be held completely responsible. It is absolutely true that the federal government has failed for decades to come up with a sensible solution to the immigration problem, and for those that live on the border this is certainly a crucial issue. There is deep irony in the federal government suing a state for taking action which the state took simply because the federal government failed to act. Naturally this doesn't excuse Arizona's actions, but it does help explain them.

I'm sure I have come across as angry in this post. I'm frustrated certainly, but more than anything I'm saddened by McCain's journey over the last few years. I think he had the opportunity to be a true statesman, a fixture of the Senate with the imposing figure of a Ted Kennedy. As I've outlined here, his Senate career has been marked by courage and principle, and it is disheartening to see him sacrifice it. If he does win re-election in November, I do hope he will find his faith again and rejoin his buddy Lindsey in the middle. It's obvious to me his pandering to the far-right makes him uncomfortable. I'm sure he's watching as his daughter continues to make a name for herself in the political scene with moderate values received from her father. Yes, McCain has beaten the "maverick" moniker beyond recognition, but I remember when it used to evoke the gunslinger vigilantism that I still believe is at the heart of McCain's character.

Come back to us, John. Country first, remember? We need you.

Cartoon courtesy of Matt Davies.

Stornoway - "Zorbing"

The great Drew Norris introduced me to this band, as he has so many wonderful musicians in the past.

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder – "Living for the City"

Hoping for Google to Save Us from Facebook

There's a rumor going around that Google is working on app to compete head-on with Facebook called "Google Me." I for one am excited.

I'm excited because I'd really rather not use Facebook. It's buggy, it's noisy, it's hard to use, and every six months they change everything so I'm forced to relearn how to use it. And then of course there's the constant privacy debacles, in which Facebook unleashes some new "feature" on their users without asking permission, making their content public without their knowledge.

Some claim that expecting Facebook not to share your information is silly. They claim that Facebook has created no real expectation of privacy. This just isn't true. Facebook (or "The Facebook," if you remember those days) began as a social network that was open only to students at a particular college. It was made clear to users when they signed up that the content they contributed to the service would only be visible to their friends. That was the whole allure of the site which separated it from MySpace, the dominant social network at the time. (Well, that and no repeating backgrounds and animated gifs.)

Facebook has unquestionably proven itself unworthy of our private content, but of course this doesn't matter. Facebook and its maniacal 25-year-old CEO can screw up much worse than they have so far without fear of repercussion, because they have a Microsoft-like stranglehold on us. Just like Windows, we cannot move to a competing product because we use the product to communicate with people—who all use the product! Who wants to switch to a social network with nobody on it? Sure, the tech yuppies will host "quit Facebook days" and we'll all whine, whine, whine, but at the end of the day, it won't make a difference. For most of us, it takes too much effort just to understand how Facebook has violated our privacy each time, let alone consider leaving behind all the personal connections we have on the site.

We're doomed. At least, we may be. Because if the rumors are true, Google Me might be about to change our stars.

Of course, the launch of Google Buzz in February didn't bode well. Google chose to make a lot of content public without asking permission. But even after Google cleaned up their privacy act, the product was still so confusing and redundant to use that almost none of my friends adopted it. As a result, it became a needless distraction for me and I've hidden it in Gmail ever since.

That said, I think Google has the smarts and the power to create a viable Facebook alternative. People will accuse them of being Microsoft-esque by creating a crappier version of an already successful product after the fact and forcing it on their users, but when you consider how quickly and how pervasively Facebook is gaining control over large swaths of how people connect on the internet, I think Google needs to do something to protect its interests. Facebook is now the number one site on the internet. It's replacing email for many people. It's integrating itself into sites outside of its domain. It's creating its own search engine. It's developing its own currency. The more people use Facebook to explore the web, the more they see Facebook's ads instead of Google's. Google has reason be scared.

Personally, I trust Google a lot more with my private information than I do Facebook. I'm hoping they'll come out with a great product (read: not Orkut) that will encourage enough of my friends to join in that I can leave Facebook behind forever. Google certainly has the ability to make great products. They have built many of Facebook's features already but they're currently spread over many Google products and (as is typical for Google) integrated poorly. Google will have to overcome this. But the significant advantage they have is an instant user base—176 million people already have Gmail accounts (admittedly, less than half of Facebook's 400 million users). If/when Google Me launches, all my friends on Gmail will instantly be members (assuming they opt-in to check it out). There will be no waiting or hard work convincing my friends to invest their time in a new social network.

And that just might be my ticket out of Facebook.