UP@NIGHT

By now I am sure that most of America has heard about the former VP’s outrageous interview with Politico, which has been generously quoted in the MSM. Besides reiterating what every sentient adult American knows, namely, that it is possible that there will be a serious terrorist strike in the U.S. in the next few years, Dr. Doom tried to set the stage for the blaming the attack on the Obama administration. “When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.” Politico

This nonsense is from a man whose war in Iraq and torture policies have in all likelihood created more terrorists than all of the combined recruiting techniques used by Al Qaeda.  He has made us less safe and decent in oh so many ways. But just as my fury was reaching unspeakable heights, I heard about a rather amazing turn of events. The Obama Administration plans to use Dr. Doom’s “expertise” in a thoroughly new fashion. They are creating a department of soothsayers made up of individuals who claim to have powers that allow them to leap over historical realities in single bounds. Cheney will direct this group of Jeremiahs. He plans to use his gifts in reading bird entrails, especially ones that he has shot, to help educate his comrades.

Obama it seems is way ahead of us on this one. It turns out that those of us who have been hypercritical of Dick have not realized that he has been suffering for years from a rather rare syndrome that leads him to believe that he has prophetic powers. His pacemaker, which was implanted several years back, suffers from a serious defect. It produces a low frequency audio pulse to the Thermonuclear region of the Hiffocampus. (It goes softly “boom” about every 18 minutes.) This results in behavior that is hard to separate from that of sociopaths, especially in terms of their tendency to lose sight of the differences between truth and lies, right and wrong. So, yes, Cheney has been a pathological liar, but for an understandable reason. Unfortunately the pacemaker cannot be removed without creating the possibility that the patient might suffer from an overload of guilt and remorse, which could lead to suicide. And his doctor’s oath, unlike Cheney’s own as VP, requires that he do no harm.

The Obama administration’s plan to make Cheney Director of the Cassandra Complex is an elegant solution to the problem of Cheney. As you may recall, even when Cassandra was telling the truth about the future, she was fated to not be heeded. Cheney can now spend the rest of his days, along with a bevy of sociopaths, feeling good about the fact that they know the future but no one will listen to them.

Here is a model of their new building, right off the Mall in D.C. The design goes back to Bentham. (And since, needless to say, no one can really know what the future holds in store, this is a good place to store folks like this.)

Following the unregulated free market logic that has spiraled the country into our current economic morass, the Republican Party, especially those in the House of Representatives, have taken a page from the corporate world.  They have decided to downsize, and it appears that the execs at GOP, Inc. are expecting the downsize to be permanent.   The logic here seems to be that it is better to have a smaller, more efficient body of ideologues, that can be held in line, in order to toe the line.  This will guarantee that the rhetoric from GOP  Inc., its most important product line, will remain as pure as the first snows of winter.   After all, Republicans are principled folks, unlike Democrats and Obamanites who are willing to be “pragmatic.”

The unprecedented scope of their business plan has only become apparent in the last few days.   The Republican execs in the House of Representatives, Boehner’s band of boys, have been especially aggressive in supporting it.  A recent Washington Post-ABC News Poll has shown overwhelming support for the President’s stimulus package, yet not one Republican in the House voted for the President’s package.

Would you support or oppose new federal spending of about 800 billion dollars on tax cuts, construction projects, energy, education, and health care to try to stimulate the economy?

70% Support
27% Oppose

And Nate Silver reports on January 29, 2009, the following on FiveThirtyEight:

It’s not just the goose egg that the House Republicans laid on the Democratic stimulus package yesterday: Boehner’s Boys have been equally uncooperative on other matters. Case in point: a bill yesterday to delay the transition to digital TV. This measure was approved unanimously by the Senate; every Senate Republican gave it the green light. But 155 out of 178 House Republicans voted against it, which resulted in the measure’s defeat since a two-thirds majority would have been required for passage under the House’s suspension of the rules.

Or, take the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a seemingly fairly popular/populist (if not inscrutable) piece of legislation on gender-based pay discrepancies. This was something that Barack Obama whacked John McCain on on the campaign trail, with McCain offering little rebuttal. In the Senate, five Republicans — out of 41 — voted with the Administration on Ledbetter, including all four Republican women. In the House, just three Republicans did — out of 178.

There may be a few retrograde Republicans in the Senate not fully with the downsizing program.   But one has to understand that the  House represents the life blood of the Party.  They are the elected Republicans closest to the forces of production, those that produce the largest quantities of grade A  ideology.  So, unless there is an unexpected upheaval at the top of GOP, Inc., expect the downsizing to continue.  (The proposed new motto for the new GOP:  Change through Ideological Purity.)  There have even been rumors that GOP, Inc. would rather go bankrupt than compromise its principles.   (Unnamed sources suggest that bankruptcy filings can be expected any day now.  Stay tuned.)

(Image from The Boston Phoenix)

UPDATE:  August 26, 2010.  Well, it looks like I must have been terribly wrong about this from what appears to be a Republican resurgence.  As of today, the Republicans look like they may win back the House this November.  They have been temporarily saved by the bad economy and the mid-term election pattern of voters turning against the incumbent party.  However, I would still argue that in the long term Republicans will be forced to downsize if they decide to stick with ideological purity.  They don’t have any answers to the economic mess that we are in.  (Just look at the how dependent they are on the “magic” bullet of lowering taxes, which helped bury us during the Bush years.)  Once people realize this, and understand how much of the Party is under the sway of right wing ideologues, the Republicans will indeed have to consider downsizing.   (And then there are the demographics that are against them.  But this would be another blog.)

Obama Photograph by Jonas Karlsson in Vanity Fair

We know that the contrast between Bush and Obama could not be more stark.  But I have just come across a distinction that may trump many of those with which we are already familiar, for example, that Obama has studied history, while Bush has become an object lesson for historians.

As reported in Politico:

Bush famously arrives at the Oval Office by dawn, leaves by 6 p.m. and goes to bed by 10 p.m. Dinners out are as rare as a lunar eclipse.

Obama, by contrast, stays up late. He holds conference calls with senior staff as late as 11 p.m., and often reads and writes past midnight. Ahead of the Democratic National Convention, he spent consecutive nights holed up in a Chicago hotel room, working on his speech until 2 a.m.

Why, you ask, might this be important?  Night owls are often viewed with suspicion by day-timers, the morning people, the early risers, etc.  Base prejudice.  The list of productive night people is long, from Voltaire to Kafka to Winston Churchill.  As a matter of fact,  it seems that the odds of being creative increases if one is a night owl, at least this is what one recent study demonstrates.

Not a morning person? Take solace — new research suggests that “night owls” are more likely to be creative thinkers.

Scientists can’t yet fully explain why evening types appear to be more creative, but they suggest it could be an adaptation to living outside of the norm.

“Being in a situation which diverges from conventional habit — nocturnal types often experience this situation — may encourage the development of a non-conventional spirit and of the ability to find alternative and original solutions,” lead author Marina Giampietro and colleague G.M. Cavallera wrote in a study to be published in the February 2007 issue of Personality and Individual Differences.

Yes, one small study, but a giant leap for all humankind.  (The study was reported on The Discovery Channel’s on-line site.  You can read more of the details here.)

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Nighthawks by Edward Hopper (1942)

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If you are interested in the world of night folks, the final frontier, you can try the web site Night People. According to Night People:  You Know You’re a Night Person If...

• Sunrise comes as an unpleasant surprise.
• You call someone on the phone to just chat and discover that they’ve been asleep for six hours.
• You do your best work at 2 a.m.
• You finally force yourself to go to bed at 1 a.m. and then keep having brilliant ideas that you have to get up and write down.
• People who are perky or sharp in the morning appall you—and can run rings around you before noon, too.
• Birds start singing about the time you fall asleep.

“Night People” is connected to a site that sells items supporting the cause of night people.   Right on!  Here is the link. A couple of my favorites are pictured below.  (This, I might add, is the first product “suggestion” by UP@NIGHT.)

Okay, I thought that I was done thinking about Bush.  Just two more days to go and he will be deep in the heart of Texas, reading all those “Drive Friendly” signs posted along the highways and byways of the Lone Star State.  (A message that his foreign policy should have heeded more often.)

Unfortunately, it seems that this guy can’t leave us with any good news.  His presidency has helped confirm that a large segment of the American populace is either deeply illiterate about American history or perhaps just plain bonkers (or both).  I don’t know which hypothesis I prefer.   A recent Pew poll tells us the following:

Here is what I want to know.   Everyone is talking about how extraordinarily high Bush’s unfavorable ratings are as he leaves office, perhaps the highest ever, around 70% in some polls.    And yet, more than one in ten Americans think that Bush was an above average or an outstanding president.  And another 28% thinks that he was average.   We can leave it to future historians to tell us whether he has been the worst president.  (He might not have beaten out James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, or Warren G. Harding.  Then again, he might have.)  A survey of present-day historians tell us that he is going be at the bottom of the heap.   (Yes, all of these historians could be deluded.  Odds are they aren’t.   And if George was even an average president, I tremble for the future of The Republic.)

I know, this might seem a small matter.   However, I worry about stuff like this.  39% of Americans think that Bush was an average or above average president.  Can there be any better argument for increasing the funds for the study of history and politics in our schools?  We saw how much damage ignorance led to in the Oval Office, but no doubt it has repercussions in the hinterlands.  Remember, we, the American people, elected George for a second term.

There is, however, some good news in all of this.  Two of the worst presidents ever, Pierce and Buchanan, preceded Lincoln.  Maybe we will get lucky.  You know, it’s always darkest before the dawn.   (And, hey, Obama doesn’t have to be a Lincoln to succeed.  Just a truly above average president.)

P.S.  A personal note: as a former Houstonian, and as someone married to a former Houstonian, I was very pleased to learn that when George heads back to Texas he will be splitting his time between Crawford and Dallas.  Perhaps the Cowboys will make him an honorary dude.

Here is a prediction: the culture wars will be left by the wayside as we enter a seemingly new land, the land of the tactically minded chief executive, whose tactics are the tip of a philosophical iceberg.  The executive is Obama and the iceberg is Pragmatism.

Comments regarding Obama’s pragmatism constitute something of a cottage industry. These discussions usually involve contrasting Obama’s pragmatism, for example, in choosing his cabinet, with the ideological approach of Bush and the neo-cons.  Here the term pragmatism is meant to denote political flexibility, comfort with the expedient, and a willingness to compromise.  For critics it is meant to suggest an unprincipled orientation toward questions of great moment. Given Obama’s willingness to label himself a pragmatist, many have been mystified by his commitment to specific values, finding him not only unclassifiable in accepted political categories, but mystifying as a person.  For example, in a recent article in Harpers, “The American Void,” Simon Critchley treats Obama as, well, a void.  He just can’t figure the guy out.   In fact, as I have noted elsewhere (PBS site), there is nothing strange about Obama’s political views for those who are familiar with the American philosophical tradition of Pragmatism or the Social Gospel Movement. Interestingly, Critchley makes much of Obama’s mother being an anthropologist, but what he fails to mention is that Ann Dunham’s thesis director was Alice G. Dewey, John Dewey’s granddaughter.  (John Dewey was perhaps the most famous Pragmatist of the twentieth century.) This is no accident. Obama’s thought and practice can be located in the tradition of American Pragmatism (pragmatism with a capital P) and in the liberal Social Gospel Movement that was influential in Chicago during the early part of the 20th century. The latter is still influential in some Chicago churches and community groups, especially those that would have most engaged Obama’s attention as a community organizer.

One of the few commentators who has begun to tease out the differences between Obama’s pragmatisms is Chris Hayes. He writes in The Nation, “Pragmatism in common usage may mean simply a practical approach to problems and affairs. But it’s also the name of the uniquely American school of philosophy whose doctrine is that truth is pre-eminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. What unites the two senses of the word is a shared skepticism toward certainties derived from abstractions–one that is welcome and bracing after eight years of a failed, faith-based presidency. . . . And if there’s a silver thread woven into the pragmatist mantle Obama claims, it has its origins in this school of thought. Obama could do worse than to look to John Dewey….For him, the crux of pragmatism, and indeed democracy, was a rejection of the knowability of foreordained truths in favor of ‘variability, initiative, innovation, departure from routine, experimentation.’ ” The Nation, Dec 10, 2008

Hayes is moving in the right direction.  I would take his claims a step further.  There is no understanding of Obama without an understanding of Pragmatism. Take for instance the question of whether one can have principles and still be a pragmatist.  From the vantage point of philosophical Pragmatism, the question is non-starter.  The use of principles to address philosophical and political issues extends back to Plato and Aristotle, and migrates through Kant’s deontological ethics into the twentieth century.  But the Pragmatist wants to bypass this mode of thinking, one that requires us to believe that affirming values requires a principled affirmation of values.  Principles are in fact problematic and counterproductive.  Dewey, for example, railed against Kant during WWI, claiming that the rigidity of his ethics of principled imperatives was reflected in the dictatorial and undemocratic mindset of the German regime.  People who believe in democracy should be suspicious of permanent truths and principles.  As Hannah Arendt argues, debate is at the heart of political life, and Truth (with a capital “T”) kills debate. (Obama’s father was a man of principle to the point of stubbornness.  He had a failed career and a led a troubled life.  It is hard to read Dreams of My Father and not conclude that Obama came away from his “journey” with a lasting distaste for principles. His mother, on the other hand, was the epitome of a Deweyan in her love of experience, experimentation, novelty, change, and belief in the transformational power of education.)

In the “Epilogue” to Dreams of My Father, Obama reports a conversation that he and his sister, Auma, had with Dr. Rukia Odero, a professor of history.  A central question in the discussion: how should Africans adapt to the values that Westerners have brought to Africa?   That Obama chose to report the conversation is telling.  Rukia, I would argue, is meant to give voice to Obama’s views.  She states, “I suspect that we can’t pretend that the contradictions of our situation don’t exist.  All we can do is choose.”  And after discussing the complexities of the issue of female circumcision, she goes on to say, “You cannot have rule of law and then exempt certain members of your clan.  What to do?  Again you choose.  If you make the wrong choice, then you learn from your mistakes.  You see what works.”  (Dreams from My Father, New York: Crown, 2004, p. 434)  “Seeing what works” is indeed the mantra of Pragmatism.  Yet as in existentialism, this doesn’t mean that one doesn’t feel the weight of moral and political decisions.  It means that one can’t appeal to principles in advance to justify one’s decisions or “what works.”

But doesn’t being a pragmatist, in both senses of the term, just make Obama a relativist?  No doubt for the ideologically committed, those who fear a leader without a moral compass, this would be a central concern.  But once again this is to frame the issue in the wrong fashion.  Relativism is a problem for moral absolutists.  Without a lasting commitment to absolutes, there isn’t a problem of relativism.  Instead there is the problem of deciding what values to hold.  To frame the discussion in terms of absolutism versus relativism is already to accept the framework of the religious right, which is what the Republicans have been notoriously successful in doing for two generations.  However, the choice is not between absolutism and relativism.  It is between different values. Commitments to values arise from numerous sources, including thoughtful deliberation and prudential considerations.  And it is in the realm of “prudence” that one finds a symmetry between upper and lower case pragmatism.  For the Pragmatist prudential considerations do not always trump other values, but sometimes they do, because prudence or tactical maneuvering may be required to realize successfully a greater good.  As a matter of fact, a thoughtful political agent doesn’t make dogmatic, read absolutistic, decisions in advance regarding what values and tactics may be the most vital and relevant.

The culture wars have depended on disagreements over specific values and the belief that principles are central to morality.  Or at least this is the way that the religious right has sought to frame the controversy, a perception that neo-cons have used to reinforce their political agendas.  When Obama speaks of being post-ideological, of being a pragmatist, I read him as trying to address logjams over values by avoiding divisive discourses based on principles.  How does one accomplish this?  Well, one way is to sound as if one is not ideological, for example, by showing flexibility on specific moral and political questions.  By so doing Obama is not simply maneuvering. He is not being disingenuous.  He is behaving as if he is a committed Pragmatist, and as such he is seeking to change the ground rules for political discourse.

Obama may very well succeed with a little help from his (several million) friends, and realities on the ground, namely, a serious financial crisis that suddenly has life-long, dogmatic free-marketers running for cover.  He may also succeed because he is attuned to something very basic about the American psyche.  It is no accident that Pragmatism is the most significant philosophy that America has produced.  There is something deeply American about it.  But is it Left, Right, or Center? Once again, this is to ask a misleading question.  Its tent is large enough to contain persons from across the American political spectrum, if one judges political commitments by specific values.  Yet in an American context Obama’s Pragmatism presents a much greater challenge to the ideological Right than to the ideological Left.  How so?  If the conversation is shifted away from absolutes, the Right in America will lose the ground from which it has hurled its most potent missiles.  Some on the Right are beginning to recognize the threat that Obama poses.  Some still believe that they can bring back the days of the culture wars. The latter, however, are predicated on the “principled versus pragmatist” distinction, one that is becoming less consequential with each passing day.  So, I wish the dogmatic Right lots of luck. They will need it.  As for the non-dogmatic Right, if debate is crucial to a thriving democracy, I wish them well, and so does the Pragmatist Obama.

Obama on pragmatism (with a small p) and the dangers of certainty (which relates to philosophical Pragmatism).

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UPDATE, January 5, 2010:  I discovered through a reader’s comment that this video is no longer available.  I don’t know when it was made  unavailable or why its presence on YouTube constitutes a use violation.  I assume that NBC must have pulled it.   It was a nice clip because it showed the kind of fallibilist sensibility that one finds in Pragmatism.

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Richard Rorty, sometimes referred to as a neo-pragmatist, makes a few brief comments about his version of pragmatism in the video below.  During the last decade of the twentieth century, he was one of the most influential philosophers in the English speaking world. (Related clips are available at the bottom of the screen after he finishes speaking.)

Through careful investigative reporting, I now have an exclusive for readers of UP@NIGHT.  Here are eleven facts that the MSM is simply not reporting (yet):

1.  Sarah Palin returned to Alaska from the lower forty-eight by clicking her new red Pradas together three times and repeating, “There is no place like Nome.”

2.  Osama bin Laden’s code name among his compatriots is, “Joe the Plumber.”  And in one of the most bizarre twists in the election, it turns out that McCain’s “Joe the Plumber” is a hairless Osama look alike.

3.  John McCain will be playing Saul Tigh in the last episodes of Battlestar Gallactica, if and only if he is willing to call himself a Cylon and not a Ceylonese.

4. The software program that the Obama campaign used so effectively on its web site is called Hawaii 5.0.

5. The name of Bill O’Reilly’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” actually refers to the role that Bill (as a double agent) hoped to play in an Obama victory; namely, Bill hoped to become the major factor in turning voters away from four more years of Republican rule.

6.  George Bush was just joshing us when he kept mispronouncing the word, “nuclear.”  It turns out that George has a wicked sense of humor.  The last (almost) eight years have actually been a prank that he has been playing on the country.  It seems that he was never The Decider, aka, the president.  (The guys up in Canada who “pranked” Palin will tell you that they learned everything they know from George.)

7.  John McCain secretly divorced Cindy just before he selected Sarah Palin for his VP.  As part of the settlement, she agreed to stand 20 paces behind him at every campaign rally for the next six weeks and smile.  In return Cindy got to keep all of their homes.  John now has no where to live.  (Hence, a good reason for him to stop confusing Cylon and Ceylon, see Fact #3, because he needs the extra money that an equity acting job will bring him.)

8. Dick Cheney’s identical (and evil) twin, Clyde Cheney, has actually been VP.  Dick was removed from office two weeks after the inauguration when it became clear that he simply couldn’t tolerate Rovean tactics, sweet man that he is.  The real Dick Cheney has been living as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago and is known in the neighborhood as My Man DC.  (That’s the real Dick below.)

9.  Obama’s first name is not Barack, and it’s not even Barry.  It’s “Arthur.”  But ever since he decided to become president in kindergarten, he has worried that having the name Arthur might lead envious opponents to refer to him as “King Arthur.”  Bad news for a black dude.  Thinking ahead, as he is wont to do, he asked his school teachers to call him Barry.  And then at just the right strategic moment to make his run for president, he settled on the name Barack in college.

10.  Idaho, the birthplace of Sarah Palin, was never admitted to the Union.  We pretended to admit Idaho because we felt sorry for it due to its name and shape, and we wanted its potatoes.   So Sarah Palin couldn’t have become VP even if McCain had won.  You Betcha!   (If you don’t believe this fact, look it up.  There’s going to be a new Wikipedia entry explaining the whole scam.)

11.   Joe Lieberman’s middle name is “Loyalty,” Joe Loyalty Lieberman; and he is actually a Klingon, albeit a confused one, confusing John McCain with the Klingon Empire.

Stay tuned for more facts as they become available…..

Yes, well, I know, it’s all very confusing.  Red states are supposed to be Republican states and Blue ones Democratic.  But McCain and his surrogates are running around suggesting that Obama is a socialist, which is of course just a kinder and gentler word for communist or Red.  In any case, socialist/communist, what difference does it make if McCain feels that he can use the epithet to help him defeat Obama.  Here is McCain’s latest campaign “strategy” as reported in today’s Los Angeles Times.

By Bob Drogin and Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 19, 2008
CONCORD, N.C. — John McCain sharpened his attack on presidential rival Barack Obama’s economic proposals Saturday, accusing the Democrat of seeking to turn the United States into a socialist country and convert the IRS into a giant “welfare agency” that would dole out cash at Washington’s discretion….McCain, delivering a national radio address before setting out for stops Saturday in North Carolina and Virginia, said Obama’s approach sounded “a lot like socialism.”

McCain’s claim is patently absurd.  Increasing income taxes on Americans making over 250,000 a year–by making their rates equivalent to what they were during the Clinton presidency–and lowering taxes on the middle class, doesn’t exactly sound like socialism to most Americans. And of course it’s not.  As a matter of fact, only the most die-hard, right-wing ideologue, one who is opposed to progressive taxes, social security, medicare, etc, would be likely to make such an outrageous claim and actually believe it.  So we have couple of choices here: McCain is an extreme right-wing ideologue OR he is lying and knows it.

Given the history of Red-baiting in this country, and the number of lives it destroyed, this is dangerous territory.  Further, McCain is playing with fire on another front.  He can’t directly raise the issue of race.  But he can try to make Obama appear foreign and  unamerican (you know, he “pals around with terrorists,” according to Palin).  Here is a recent attempt from Palin to play the all-American card:

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Sara Palin, October 16, 2008

Now the really big guns have been brought out.  Not only is Obama from the wrong part of the country–raised in Hawaii and schooled in big cities, so he is not really pro-American–but he may also be a socialist.  If you know anything about actual socialism/communism, this is too silly to be believed.   And it is even beyond silly, if that’s possible, since a conservative Republican administration has just semi-nationalized part of the banking industry.  Nationalization is a lot closer to socialism than modest changes in our tax rates.  (Marx would have a good laugh over this one, while he is turning over in his grave.)  But one doesn’t have to be a pundit to figure out what is really being said here.  Obama is not one of us, that is, don’t forget white America that he is black.

It’s time for McCain to feel a little shame.

We remember Paul Newman today as a distinguished actor, philanthropist, committed progressive, and a truly decent soul.   And on this day of his passing, his unique career does us an additional service.  It helps us to understand why Obama won the debate and why he is going to win the election.  As everyone knows, Paul Newman had a one in million smile, and he would certainly be flashing one now if he knew that he had made this contribution.

All we need is one film to make the case.  While Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid may not be a great movie, it is a very good one, and perhaps more importantly, it was a timely one.  It was a zeitgeist film.  It connected with an audience that understood that time was out of joint in America, that we were adrift, that we were losing our collective soul, and that we needed to set things right.  When the “bad guys” become the good guys, and “the law” is viewed as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you know that the world has been turned topsy-turvy.  And when an audience feels so undermined that it can immediately connect with the line, “Who are those guys?” that is, those guys who can’t be stopped from chasing us (think here of the Vietnam War and a nation in turmoil back in 1969), you know that things have run amok.

Paul Newman’s films were often successful not only because of their success as works of art, but because they understood the importance of speaking to an audience, something which many of our pundits and commentators still do not seem to appreciate.  How so?  Last night I spent hours, UP@NIGHT, in true political junkie fashion, listening to commentators on the first debate between Obama and McCain.  I would listen to the first round of comments, and then since I couldn’t be in two virtual places at once, turn to reruns of earlier broadcasts.  I have also looked at many of the editorials in print today.

Time and time again, commentators insisted on using sports metaphors to describe the debate, primarily from boxing (points, knockouts) and baseball (home runs, strikes).  There were exceptions, but just turn to the print media today.  What’s the big headline?  “No Knockout.”  We hear about jabs that were thrown, and counter punches, etc.  We hear criticisms that Obama didn’t throw enough punches, and that he could have brought McCain down by going more on the offense   I am sure that you have heard this stuff.   I won’t belabor the point.

But Obama understands, like Newman did, that acting is about audience.  And presidential debates have more in common with acting than they do with sports contests.  Or let me put this another way.  Presidential debates are like auditions, and if you are going to be successful in an audition, you’ve got to be able to have a sense of what the director is looking for and the possibilities of a role.  In this case, the director is the American people and the role is president.  And the goal of the debater is not merely to score points, but to give a performance that resonates with the desires and hopes of the people. The debate is not an end.  It is a means, and it is not a means to merely “winning” the debate in terms of points, but of winning the election.

I am not surprised that polls and focus groups show that more people thought Obama won. (Two  examples, a USA Today/Gallop Poll, a CBS poll.)  Nor am I surprised by the internal numbers in the polls showing that Obama went a long way toward crossing the biggest hurdle that he needed to cross, making voters feel comfortable with whether he is ready to be president.  If you think about the debate in terms of an audition, then Obama was wildly successful.  Obama appears to have convinced a significant number of people that he is ready to lead, cool under fire, knowledgeable, not easily flustered (by a cranky old guy telling you that “you don’t understand”), and energetic.  Further, he reinforced his message that he understands “people like you and me,” which was already one of his strong suits.  It was actually a beautifully orchestrated event, right down to the ads Obama has started to run.

Obama won this debate in the only terms that he needed to win it.  He connected with a larger number of people in the audience than did McCain, and made them feel comfortable with his “playing the role” of president, while discussing a topic that was supposed to be McCain’s strong suit.  Obama is going to win the election.  And unlike Butch and Sundance, this story is going to have a happy ending.

Okay, here is my take about what has been going on in terms of Palin and McCain.  The writers for the Daily Show are actually trained undercover agents.  They have infiltrated the McCain/Palin campaign and have been writing speeches, talking points, and press releases.  How else can one account for Palin’s statements?  Seeing Russia from Alaska counts as evidence of foreign policy expertise.  Who can deny that this is a beautiful piece of writing?  And now there are the cows.

From The NY Times:

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.   The New York Times, Sunday, August 13th.  Link

Does it get better than this?  VP candidate appoints classmate, real estate agent and cow fancier, Franci Havemeister (is this a real name?), as head of State Division of Agriculture.  (Did I miss something here?  Agriculture=Cows.)  I mean, let’s suppose this was President Palin:  For Secretary of Defense: Bobby Have A’meister, friend, used car salesman, lover of Colt 45′s, and Moose hunter. Why not?

Palin and her good friend Bobby Have A’meister:

Well, there is the, “but seriously folks,” to all of this.  The problem with Palin is not just that she places friendship over expertise, but that she also appears to be Nixon-like (remember his Enemies List) and Bush-like in the way in which she goes after perceived enemies.   The Times article goes on to make the following point, which we have seen made in other venues.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

Wow….Opponents are haters!  Unfortunately this is not a corny reference to a group of aliens in a bad sci fi flick.  It is Palin unfiltered.  They are Haters because they are perceived to be her enemies.

What we have here is one of the oldest ethical failings in the book, and conservatives, as well as moderates and liberals, should be very concerned.  In the first book of Plato’s Republic various definitions of justice are offered.  All prove inadequate.  One of the earliest ones to be shot down is the following:

Justice is helping friends and injuring enemies.

While this definition is pretty common in gangster-land, it reflects a poor and limited understanding of justice.  Here are a few of the issues: 1) our friends may prove to be bad people; 2)  there may be good individuals amongst our enemies; 3) we need intelligence and knowledge to determine who are our real friends and who our real enemies; and 4) we can injure (or do an injustice to) our friends if we don’t understand what we are doing (for example, the incompetent physician who gives his friend the wrong medicine).

It’s simpleminded in the extreme to think that we can be just by merely helping those we take to be our friends and injuring our enemies. Those  who call themselves our friends may not worthy of our support.  Or to take this closer to home: they may not be competent to hold the positions to which we appoint them.  (From Real Estate to Agriculture Honcho via a love of cows….a friend is a friend is a friend.) It appears that Palin never considered that it might be unjust (as well as unwise) to appoint friends instead of those who have genuine expertise. After all she was climbing a ladder to break her own personal glass ceiling.  She is much like Bush.  And this is indeed no laughing matter.  So maybe the Daily Show people are not actually behind her words.

(Yes, there are times when we may have to hurt good people, for example, when we are in a war.  But we must not slip into the mentality that we are always at war or at war against our fellow Americans because they disagree with us or don’t share our values.)

One last point, the sort of mentality that I have been describing–let’s call it: loyalty fanaticism–is not confined to the head honcho.  It pervades the culture of the administrations of such people.  I leave you with one small example from Palin’s current administration in Alaska, which should make bloggers of all political stripes take to the barricades. (It’s from the NY Times article quoted above.)

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”