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Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Sunday, 26 June 2005

Topic: Announcements

Redirection

Just after midnight, Pacific Time, the new edition of Just Above Sunset, the weekly parent site to this daily web log, was posted. This is Volume 3, Number 26 - for the week of June 26, 2005 – and because it is in magazine format there is much there that you will not find here.

There, in the pages of commentary on current events you will see it has been quite a week. Extending what was first posted here, you will find fairly comprehensive reviews of domestic political news - "Just who are you calling a traitor and a wimp?" - and a bit on the Porn Star and the President in "Five Curiosities" – and a guest column from the News Guy. Last week things really got hot.

Birthdays last week? Sartre and Turing. And a famous French writer visits the neighborhood, but is Michel Houellebecq really a celebrity? Much on big doings in Paris this week with the Fête de la Musique and a curious parade five days later – and the Left Bank Lens (Don Smith) sends us great photos.

Local photography? A fantastic day on Rodeo Drive with odd old cars, and an additional page of minor curiosities. Quotes? Very cynical this week. Bob Patterson reports on the local literary scene, and ponders journalism, and provides an on-the-scene account of that Beverly Hills extravaganza. And a few things are cleared up regarding Cincinnati.

Here are direct links to specific pages:

Current Events _____________

Spin City: Temporarily Moved from DC to Manhattan [the Rove business]
Polling Notes: Effective Response to Disappointing Numbers [what motives him]
Guest Column: Rick Brown on News That Doesn't Fit the Narrative [on the Eminent Domain ruling]
Five Curiosities: Much is happening, and keeping on top of things is hard… [new photos]
Follow-Up: Last week's topics bleed into this week, so to speak… [mopping up after Dick Durbin]

Features _____________

Hollywood Notes: The Other Celebrities [Houellebecq versus Tom Cruise versus Oprah Winfrey]
Assessment: The man who thought he was being chased by a lobster through the nightmare streets full of loud music... [Jean-Paul Sartre]
Dead Guys: Another Birthday Last Week [Alan Turing]

On the scene… _____________

Our Man in Paris (1): Europe Votes for Swing [on the streets in Paris at the Fête de la Musique, with photos]
Our Man in Paris (2): Marche des Fiertés Lesbiennes, Gaies, Bi et Trans! aka Gay Pride [the parade there, with photo]
Rich Cars: Dogged Coverage of This Year's Rodeo Drive Concours d'Elegance [Bob Patterson's account, with new photos]

Bob Patterson _____________

WLJ Weekly: from the desk of the World's Laziest Journalist - Cold Pizza and Warm Beer for Breakfast [with two photos]
Book Wrangler: Doughnuts and links bond the Southern California literary scene…

Guest Photography _____________

Left Bank Lens: 2005 Fête de la Musique (and Jean-Paul Sartre) [from our professional photographer in Paris]

Local Photography _____________

Rich and Famous: The Eighth Annual Rodeo Drive Annual Concours
Curiosities: Sunrise to Sunset Out Here [note the purple octopus]

The Usual _____________

Quotes: Cynics Corner
Corrections: Regarding Cincinnati [maybe it didn't happen at all]

And here is sunset, over Sunset -


Posted by Alan at 18:02 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 26 June 2005 18:07 PDT home

Saturday, 25 June 2005

Topic: Dissent

Polling Notes: Effective Response to Disappointing Numbers

As background to the now widely-covered comment made last week by Karl Rove - "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." - and noting the Sept 14, 2001 congressional resolution authorizing force against those that attack the US passed the House 420-1 and the Senate 98-0 with not any mention of indictments, therapy, or calls for understanding - there seems to be a bit of a disconnect.

One might assume Rove, defended by the White House and his party, knows the truth about those who are unhappy with Bush and the way things are going. These folks who have questions may have voted that way, but they didn't really MEAN it when they voted that way, in spite of how they voted then and what they say now. He, as a taxpayer-paid public servant and official of the administration, knows them better than they know themselves?

Perhaps so. Or perhaps he's just being a provocateur to rally support in difficult times. Calling those who have questions weak, cowards and, as is clear in some of his remarks, no better than traitors, is not so remarkable. Such a position may seem a bit defensive, but it does get "your side" to ramp up and be more effectively righteous and angry. But these are, after all, just words, from an official of the administration, characterizing folks with questions as cowards and possibly traitors. Standard political stuff.

If you don't want to be labeled as such, don't raise questions. Simple. Get with the program.

As for what Rove said and why he said it now, the problem is something that needs to be attended to, as the natives are restless, as shown in new polling data.

Minor Item: We all know that the Republicans while in power run the economy well because they are businessmen who know business, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But the American Research Group (ARG) poll released June 23 shows sixty-percent of registered voters say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy. If you total up those who say the national economy is "bad," "very bad" or "terrible"? That comes out to sixty-three percent.

But the economy is a minor matter, and, as my conservative friends argue, there's not much any president, Democrat or Republican, can do to influence it, except to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy so they will invest and the general economy will grow. And that this hasn't worked this time is further proof that supply disruptions, from severe weather or war or whatever, are outside the control of any president - thus Clinton was just lucky in the nineties. Yes, some of us agree no one can do much about the weather, or earthquakes or tidal waves and such, but the war thing may be different in some way. Still, no one outside the community of tin-foil hat conspiracy weirdos claims this administration was responsible for the September 11 attacks, at least in any direct way. So give Bush a Mulligan here.

But as for how Bush is doing generally, these data might explain Rove needing to remind people to shape up -
Among Republicans (36% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 84% approve of the way Bush is handling his job and 12% disapprove. Among Democrats (38% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 18% approve and 77% disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job. Among Independents (26% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 17% approve and 75% disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president.
It seems the independents have gone over to the dark side, or what Rove calls the side of the cowards and traitors. Not good. So, to explain, they need to be reminded that if they don't want to be called cowards and traitors, they had better change their minds.

The really starting late week poll comes from Rasmussen Reports with this:
49% Say Bush Responsible for Provoking Iraq War
44% Say Hussein

June 23, 2005 - Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that President Bush is more responsible for starting the War with Iraq than Saddam Hussein. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 44% take the opposite view and believe Hussein shoulders most of the responsibility.

In late 2002, months before the fighting began, most Americans thought that Hussein was the one provoking the War. Just one-in-four thought the President was doing the provoking at that time. …
That is a change, and quite odd. As James Wolcott comments -
What amazes me is that more Americans now blame Bush for provoking the war with Iraq than blame Saddam Hussein. That's not an argument I've heard anyone make on cable talk or on the op-ed pages. Somehow Americans drew that conclusion all on their own! The tide of popular opinion turning against the war is washing away walls we didn't even know were there.
Something is up. Rove's speech in New York was designed to deal with it. The message of the speech? Change your mind or Rove will call you names.

Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon (William Montgomery) has more complex analysis than that.
I actually think Rove's rant should be seen as a somewhat encouraging sign. Rove and his idiot chorus aren't roaring at the top of their lungs to try to drown out the liberals - that would be absurd overkill, given how effectively the corporate media has ridiculed and/or demonized the likes of Howard Dean and Dick Durbin. No, Rove's hate rally is aimed squarely at suppressing the growing doubts of the great silent majority - and even, to a certain extent, those of the conservative true believers, some of whom are showing ominous signs of war weariness.

... nearly 60% of the American people are now willing to say, flat out, that they oppose the war in Iraq. That's a remarkable statement. I'm not sure 60% ever opposed the war in Vietnam, even after it had been lost. You don't turn those kind of numbers around with PR spin - the casualty lists now speak louder than the microphone, even one as powerful as the White House's.

Add to that the prospect of still higher gas prices, unfilled (and probably unfillable) economic expectations and the black ring of scandal widening around the DeLay-Abramoff-Reed-Norquist axis of weevils, and it's clear that recycled Reaganite optimism - the 'morning in America' brand of propaganda - isn't going to cut it.

So Rove is falling back on his classic strategy of rallying the base. What's more, he's mainlining it a much rawer and more savage version of the conservative message than the White House usually permits itself. While the customary surrogates - Fox News, Rush, the blogger hyena pack - have snarled and snapped, the results apparently have been found wanting. Now Bush's 'brain' is stepping into the ring himself.

But, like fellow psychopath Mike Tyson, Rove isn't just telegraphing his punches, he's also displaying the depths of his fear. The rhetorical ear chewing and head butting is a clear sign the champ doesn't have the juice any more, and knows it. Rove is trying to get by on sheer intimidation. He's pushing as many primordial conservative buttons as he can - leaning on them, in fact - in hopes he can once again make the dreaded liberals the story, not the march of folly currently sinking into the Iraqi quicksand.
As, those dreaded liberals who have ruined everything! It may indeed be time to excoriate them once more, because, as Hunter over at the Daily Kos explains -
The stories coming out in the next month are going to be very, very bad for Bush and for everyone involved in selling the Iraq War. Bush's numbers have absolutely tanked, the Downing Street documents are getting more and more attention, Bush and Cheney are increasingly seen as so out-of-touch with ground reports from Iraq as to border on slightly delusional, and Senate Democrats are beginning to increasingly demand specific documents relating to the ("fixed?") claims made by the Bush Administration in the runup to the Iraq War.

Therefore, anyone who doesn't support Bush's failed and increasingly unpopular policies is a traitor. That's the line they're going with.
Yeah, so? That's the way the game is played. It's just name-calling.

And it won't make the effort to change Social Security - from a safety-net insurance program of fixed benefits for set contributions into a can-you-beat-the-market investment contest - any more popular. Rove can say the dreaded liberals hate our troops, but after the senate Republicans voted against budget increases for veterans three times this year, the dreaded liberals can point to Associated Press stories like this -
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Department of Veterans Affairs told Congress that its health care costs grew faster than expected and left a $1 billion hole in its budget this year, lawmakers said Thursday.

House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer, the Republican from Indiana, said the department can meet this year's health care costs by drawing on spare funds and money from other operations, including building construction.

But next year's health care budget falls well over $1 billion short, said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

"I was on the phone this morning with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson letting him know that I am not pleased that this has happened," said Craig, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.

"This shortfall results from either deliberate misdirection or gross incompetence by this administration and the Department of Veteran Affairs," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington.
As you see, both sides can call names. Call me a coward and a traitor and I'll call you a liar and incompetent. Of course neither gets the veterans programs funded.

So the polls have gone in the weeds for the administration. Name-calling was predictable. And it is relatively harmless.

But is that all we get?

Posted by Alan at 14:07 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 25 June 2005 14:18 PDT home


Topic: The Culture

Hollywood Notes: The Other Celebrities

As readers might have noticed, last week Just Above Sunset took a stand against commenting on tabloid news. In an item on the close of the Michael Jackson trial the idea was that there wasn't much one needed to say about that whole sorry business, and in Ric Erickson's report from Paris on Tom Cruise and what Cruise was up to there, the idea was commenting on this all was madness. Who cares?

Friday afternoon there was an email from a reader on the current Oprah Winfrey business in Paris - and on how the Columbia Journalism Review calls it a non-story - and the reader argued it really is news, because Hermes may be racist or something. You can read l'Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire story here: "US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is convinced she was turned away from a Hermes store in Paris because she is black and she plans to tell her millions of viewers about it, a spokeswoman said Friday." Whatever.

This too is not something of much interest to the editor. So readership will suffer. Fine.

But this is Hollywood, and Just Above Sunset is here in the land of celebrity. Perhaps something should be said about Tom Cruise who late in the week on national television strongly denounced all of psychiatry and the medical stuff concerning such things as mere pseudo-science – there is no such thing as "chemical imbalance" and all medications just mask the real problems and vitamins and exercise will fix any problem. Yeah, yeah. As one wag commented: "High school dropout Tom Cruise pulled his Scientology-obsessed, crazy train into New York this morning - his zombie virgin fiancée in tow - to grace Today Show viewers with his mastery of psychiatry."

You could read the whole exchange. It's pretty amazing. And worst case? People who reverence celebrities for some reason, who are depressed and suicidal, will now not seek help, or if now in treatment will stop taking their medications and stop going to see their doctors. They'll trust Tom of "Top Gun." Some will die. And there is something deliciously Darwinian about that. This may be a good thing.

But still, some stories of the famous are amusing, and close to home. Driving home to the Just Above Sunset World Headquarters, as a friend like to call this flat, your editor has more than one time been slowed by the late evening police checkpoint just down the way on Sunset Boulevard – as you drive east in Sunset leaving Beverly Hills the stop is just as you approach the Sunset Strip, right there at the local Jaguar, Land Rover dealership. And as folks who follow the movie business know, Oliver Stone recently got in some trouble there.

Oliver Stone in LA drugs arrest
BBC - Saturday, 28 May, 2005, 20:20 GMT 21:20 UK

"Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone has been arrested for drink driving and possession of drugs. Police said the 58-year-old filmmaker was arrested on Friday night [May 27] at a police checkpoint on Sunset Boulevard, in Beverly Hills, California. ..."

So the man who gave us "Nixon" and JFK" and "Natural Born Killers" and "The Doors" and "Platoon" and "Wall Street" - and last year that "Alexander" film that bombed - got busted. So?

The back-story is cool. According to Brendan Bernhard in the LA Weekly, Stone had had his head messed up by a Frenchman: "Shortly after sharing a table with the ultracontroversial French novelist at the White Lotus, a restaurant in Hollywood known for its deafening noise and nubile Asian clientele, the film director was pulled over by the cops on Sunset Boulevard and taken down to the station, charged with driving under the influence and possession of an illegal substance. It took a $15,000 bail to get him out."

Ah, Stone was driving the other direction, west, leaving the Sunset Strip area and going home to Beverly Hills.

That explanation of what happened is from the long Bernhard piece this week on the visit of Michel Houellebecq, the French novelist, to this neighborhood. Houellebecq is the author of The Elementary Particles and Platform, two books that have come up a few times in online discussions with readers, but not in these pages.

The full item is here:

L'?tranger in a Strange Land
Michel Houellebecq's Weekend in L.A.
Brendan Bernhard, LA Weekly, issue of June 23, 2005

And this assessment seems about right:
Houellebecq (pronounced wellbeck) may be the only writer alive to have been accused of being a Stalinist and a Nazi, not to mention a sex maniac and a drunk. He is almost certainly the only writer to have fallen asleep while being interviewed on television. (The question was too long, he explained later.) His work has been described as racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, nihilistic, pornographic and repulsive, as well as moving, funny and prophetic. Three years ago, he was put on trial in Paris for inciting anti-Muslim hatred after he called Islam the world's "most stupid religion" during an alcohol-laced interview with the French literary magazine Lire. Even those lovable Brazilians ("morons obsessed with soccer and Formula One") have failed to escape his satirical pen.
Bernhard interviews Houellebecq, on the guy's first visit to Los Angeles, while Michel is "smoking a cigarette at a sidewalk table at Mel's Diner on Sunset Boulevard." We learn he's trying the Santa Fe Chicken Salad, but gives up on it and opts instead for a quadruple espresso. How French. But Mel's is a faux "American Graffiti" kind of tourist trap, with bad food and no carhops at all (they have valet parking, of course). Should any of you visit, we're not going there.

Is Houellebecq out of place?
What the passerby couldn't know, of course, was that Houellebecq was a French writer; that all French writers worth their salt drink terrifyingly strong coffee, usually in enormous quantities; and that, historically, the crème de la crème like Jean-Paul Sartre have added to their coffee habit several packs of cigarettes a day along with amphetamines in the morning and barbiturates at night. It's a tough tradition to follow, but Houellebecq was doing his best.
And that is how Hollywood sees the French, of course.

This is followed by an account of some really dull conversation, but then we get this -
Few doubt his intelligence on the page, however, or the sense of isolation and loneliness that underlies his satire. The tone of his work is one of radical estrangement and ennui, and his books are studded with statements bleak even for a French writer who was once frequently treated for nervous depression.

For example: "Anything can happen in this life, especially nothing." Or: "It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable."

"Life is painful and disappointing," he wrote 14 years ago in the opening sentence of his first published prose work, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, a study of the American writer that has just been brought out in translation by Believer Books, an imprint of McSweeney's. "We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don't care to know any more. Humanity, such as it is, inspires only an attenuated curiosity in us."
Sounds very French to me. And Bernhard comments that Houellebecq is one of the few French novelists since Camus to win a substantial audience outside France. In recent decades the country "has produced enough incomprehensible philosophers, critics and theorists to fill several large cafés, but precious few writers of exportable fiction." This guy is different. He tells stories.

What kind of stories? Try gloomy realism.
Houellebecq's first novel, Whatever, was about a bored, deeply unhappy software engineer who travels around France with a pitifully ugly co-worker, teaching a new computer program to business clients. It was short, pithy and filled with a visceral loathing for just about everything. ("I hate this life. I definitely do not like it," the narrator says. "The society in which I live disgusts me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke.") It was based at least partly on the author's own life and had the unmistakable tang of reality. (During the 1980s, he worked as an agricultural engineer and debugged computers for the French National Assembly, often traveling around the country to do so.) As he would continue to do in his next two novels, Houellebecq had given voice to a class of people - alienated white-collar office workers, basically - who tend to be ignored by literary novelists.

... The Elementary Particles, published in 1998, was an international best-seller and made Houellebecq famous. The story of two half brothers, one an asexual scientist, the other a sex-addicted writer, it is about the end of the human race and is supposedly narrated by a member of the more evolved, peace-loving race of post-humans who, thanks to cloning, eventually replace us. Published in 1998, a time of relative optimism and economic expansion, the novel stunned people with the depth of its anger and pessimism, and the way it threw contempt on the once revolutionary baby boomers now running France and the West in general. As a child, Houellebecq was abandoned by his hippie parents and raised by his grandmother (his mother is said to have converted to Islam). This was payback time, and the fearlessness of his satire shocked France's literary world, which didn't seem to know what to do with him.

The problem became even more acute with the publication of Platform, a novel about the construction of a sex-tourism paradise in Thailand that is blown to pieces by Muslim terrorists, killing the narrator's girlfriend in the process. It appeared shortly before 9/11, and has a distinctly prophetic feel. The novel's central idea - that financially solvent but sexually uncharismatic Western men should make common cause with Third World women who "have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their unspoiled sexuality," bringing about a mercenary sexual relationship satisfactory to both parties - was a typical Houellebecq provocation, equal parts genius and lunacy. (Outside the West, Houellebecq pointed out, there are millions of attractive women who'd be perfectly happy to marry a dullard so long as he brought home the bacon.) The book's withering critique of Islam made it especially controversial, and all hell broke loose when Houellebecq spouted off against the religion himself in the interview in Lire. Following a suit brought by groups including the Saudi-based World Islamic League and the French Human Rights League, he was forced to defend himself in court in October 2002.
Well, he was acquitted.

And Perhaps There Is an Island, his new novel about cloning, will be published in France at the end of the summer. Should be fun, or something.

What did he do here? He stayed at the Bel Age hotel down the street, was interviewed on KCRW in Santa Monica by Michael Silverblatt on Bookworm, he spoke at the Armand Hammer Museum over in Westwood on Lovecraft.

And there were two "performances" by the Velvet Hammer Burlesque troupe, but it's best not to ask.
After the show, Houellebecq went upstairs to the reception, where he spent a couple of hours smoking cigarettes next to the THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING signs, autographing books, and schmoozing and posing for photographs with the dancers and other female admirers. He spent about 15 minutes talking to Kim Murphy, a.k.a. "Rocket Sapphire," the troupe's contortionist. Coincidentally, Murphy told me later, she was in the midst of reading one of Houellebecq's novels. Her boyfriend has only one book in his apartment, and it's Platform. "At the beginning, it was, like, what the hell is this?" she said about her reaction to the novel. "How am I going to read this book about this person who is not attached to the world at all? But now I can't stop reading it.
That about sums up a lot of how we react to French novels.

Anyway, we also get an account of a dinner at Kate Mantilini's down on Wilshire Boulevard. Houellebecq ordered a steak, heaped his salad on top of it, and had red wine. Much talk. So he got used to LA, and the food is actually pretty good there.

And what did he think of his first visit to Los Angeles, to Hollywood?
"But people don't understand," he protested, saying that Californians kept demanding to know what he thought of them and their state. "Sometimes you think nothing, you have no impressions. Nothing happened, it was an ordinary story with normal people. It was a human experience."

At the words "human experience," Houellebecq doubled up with laughter.
He obviously understands life out here. This seems the appropriate response to the world of Tom Cruise and his scientology, Oliver Stone and his arrest, Oprah and her problems, and Michael Jackson.

Nothing happened.

Posted by Alan at 00:27 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 25 June 2005 00:46 PDT home

Friday, 24 June 2005

Topic: The Media

Guest Column: Rick Brown on News That Doesn't Fit the Narrative


There has been a great deal of discussion in these pages on the roll of the press – on just what is news and what is fluff. Last weekend there were three comments, this on the Michael Jackson trial, and this and this. June 5th there was What's News and What Isn't and on June 12th A Shift in the Wind on the issue.

In the guest column below, Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, writing to the Just Above Sunset discussion group, raises the issue of another story that seems to be getting short shrift.


Atlanta, Friday, June 24, 2005 -

Just to follow up on our recent discussion concerning what some folks consider important news in this country, and what others (in this case, apparently, most) don't:

I was initially surprised about what little stir was caused by Thursday's Supreme Court decision on Eminent Domain, but now I think I understand why. The ruling actually fudges the lines between liberal and conservative, and almost all of us interested in that "great divide" (myself prominently so) tend to seek definition, not confusion. As a story, it's hard to tell because it seems to defy our innate sense of up and down - or more to the point, right and left.

I realize some folks to my left barely notice the "progressive" part of me, but I always figured it would be a cold day in hell when I would find myself siding with William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on anything whatsoever. Thursday was that day.

Thomas, in filing his own dissent, said it best: "The court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution."

In essence, if you get on the wrong side of your local government, they can force you to sell them your house, at just about whatever price they decide, to do with (and the land beneath it) whatever they choose, and there is no court in the land that can stop them.

As someone left-of-center, even if mostly only slightly so, I see the stricter (but in this court case, the minority) interpretation of what the founders meant in the fifth amendment when they said "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation," as the liberal point of view, and am shocked that the liberals on the court would see it otherwise. Having cut my political teeth during the 1960s, I've never bought into the distorted conservative image of those "socialistic" liberals always siding with government thinking it has the right to tap-dance all over the rights of you or me.

Even on the federalism issue, this ruling seems to have it backwards, with the usual states-rights folks arguing that state and local governments should not have the power to trample on individual rights, and with the usual central-government gang saying that, at least in this case, it's okay.

The only real alignment that might have been predicted here is that conservatives - represented in this decision by those mentioned, along with Sandra Day O'Connor - so often seem to equate "property" rights right up there with "personal" rights. Still, what strikes me as odd is that this is usually only a problem when the two rights are in conflict, which in this case, they are not.

First of all, we should note that the first ten amendments (or at least the first nine of them) are called the "Bill of Rights" for a good reason, in that they enumerate things that governments will not be allowed to do to individuals; they were not meant to reaffirm the right of government to do to people whatever the hell it wants to do to them!

This court's ruling is one that favors society's powerful over society's weak. When it comes to eminent domain, governments don't condemn mansions of the well-connected in order to build public housing or highways, they tear down what the powers-that-be consider "blighted" neighborhoods, killing two birds with one stone by getting rid of ugly buildings and the ugly people who live there, and replacing them with a much-needed school or municipal building - or now, with this ruling, a Toyota factory or upscale shopping Mall.

But what happens when, for example, the newly-elected (and, coincidentally, now Christian) city council decides that that Westside neighborhood, where most of the town's homosexuals live and have their bars and hangouts (and, coincidentally, largely voted in the recent election for the "secular humanist" candidates), would better serve the community if it were replaced by a huge church and revival campground that would draw "more respectable" God-fearing citizens from all over the county? You might say that this example is extreme, but there are lots of people in this country who would see nothing wrong with it.

Still, the displaced citizens could always sue, saying it goes over the line, but over what line, and based on what law? They could try to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, but there's nothing in the Constitution that will support their case anymore; the Supreme Court has just ruled that there's nothing wrong with governments crossing over any and all lines they feel like crossing.

In fact, it's hard to imagine what grounds there would be to dispute anyone's land being taken away from them, since any government can counter by saying that "we, and nobody else, have the right to decide what constitutes 'public use' under the Constitution."

Yes, the New York Times technically "led" with this story with its upper-right-hand placement on Friday morning's front page, but only under a one-column headline, without the pizzazz. Then again, it's not been a topic of ongoing discussion, which I think is a shame. Maybe we do need to find a way to make ourselves understand what topics are important enough to take public notice of.

I know saying this makes me sound like one of those old fuddy-duddies who we all used to affectionately mock, but more and more I'm beginning to realize that the country I leave behind when I die will, in about 250 short years of its existence, have already abandoned many of those rights I was brought up to believe were inalienable - a departure which, unless something terrible happens first, I am genetically scheduled to take sometime in the fall of the year 2028, at which point I will reluctantly have to drop out of this discussion group.

I'm sorry to have to bring that up, but I just wanted you to give you plenty of advance notice so you will have time to prepare yourself for that eventuality.

Copyright © 2005 – Rick Brown

__

Editor's Notes:

The basic story as reported by Associated Press:
Jun 23, 7:13 PM (ET) - Hope Yen

WASHINGTON (AP) - Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.

The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn't expect a rush to claim homes.

"The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings," said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.

The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday. ...
Click on the link for full detail.

Click here for a full text of the ruling.

Glenn Reynolds:
For Bush and the Republicans it's a big vulnerability - if they don't do anything about it, many conservatives will stay home in disgust at the next election. On the other hand, if they do something - like, say, backing Congressional action to limit takings for private use - they'll offend wealthy real estate developers, merchants, and influential local populations. They'll be squeezed, and I don't think that "help us confirm our judges to reverse this" will be a sufficient answer, though they'll try to make it one.

On the left, it's seen (rightly) as a victory for the hated Wal-Mart, and as a rule whose burden is sure to fall mostly on the poor. (When did a city ever level a rich neighborhood for this sort of thing?) On the other hand, the left isn't big on limits to government power, especially in the economic sphere.
Excerpts from a long comment from Neal Boortz, who maintains he is a libertarian more than he is a conservative -
I cannot remember being more dismayed at a court ruling, and this includes the occasional ruling against me when I was practicing law.

... The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution restricts the government's right of eminent domain. It does not, as I heard so many commentators say yesterday, grant a right of eminent domain, it restricts it. The right of eminent domain was assumed as a basic part of English Common Law. The Fifth Amendment merely said that government could not exercise this right for a public use without paying for it. The exact working is "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

... The new theory is that increasing the property taxes paid on a parcel of property is a public use. Increasing the number of people who can be employed by a business located on a particular piece of property can also be a public use.

... Bottom line: If you own property, and the government wants that property - you're screwed.

... I believe this Supreme Court decision to be a victory for the dark side in the war against individualism. Sadly, sometimes I think that I'm the only one out there who realizes that this war is being fought ... the only one on the side of individuality, that is.

... The Supreme Court decision is a horrible blow to private property rights.
Andrew Sullivan makes a comparison to the recent decision on medical marijuana Gonzales v. Raich that goes like this:
If you grow pot in your attic solely to help you survive chemotherapy, you can be prosecuted by the feds under the "inter-state commerce" rationale. Now you can have your property stolen by Wal-Mart and be unable to get any recompense either, as long as your local representatives, financed by the real estate lobby, go along. Is this an unfree country or what? And, of course, none of this breaks new ground. That's the really depressing part. It seems to me that the most inspired pick for the Supreme Court would be a thoroughgoing economic and social libertarian. The freedom-loving part of the Republican coalition has already been alienated in so many ways by this administration. A libertarian SCOTUS pick would go some way to winning them back.

UPDATE: I'm also guilty of hyperbole. As one reader reminds me: "I'm with the dissent. Nevertheless, 'unable to get any recompense' is flat out wrong. They still have to compensate the owners for their property." Point taken. It's just a lot easier for the government now than it was.
But perhaps Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, is onto something. The story doesn't fit the normal right-left narrative the press uses.

Posted by Alan at 15:42 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 24 June 2005 15:49 PDT home

Thursday, 23 June 2005

Topic: Selling the War

Spin City: Temporarily Moved from DC to Manhattan

It all started with the Master of Spin visiting Manhattan.

Rove Criticizes Liberals on 9/11
Patrick D. Healy, The New York Times, June 23, 2005
Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

Told of Mr. Rove's remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: "In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes."

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals." ...
But what everyone honed in on was two key remarks -
1.) Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

2.) Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.
Okay then. This is going to be good.

And along with that, see Dems Allegedly 'Conducting Guerrilla Warfare on Troops' back in DC -
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who joined Pryce at the press conference, told Cybercast News Service that it "is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops..."
Yeah, Howard Dean has a bomb in his briefcase and he's off to Baghdad to kill our guys. Or is that Dick Durbin flying out tonight?

And all this stuff about torture at our cushy resort down in Cuba?
"The American taxpayer is already providing accommodations for detainees, who are currently more comfortable than most of our men and women in uniform..."
Most of our men and women are chained to the floor for days at time and defecating themselves? Perhaps he didn't mean that.

Back to Rove: "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."

Over at Daily Kos there's this:
He's right. We want to understand.

We want to understand why Osama Bin Laden hasn't been captured? Why did the administration take its eyes off Al Qaida to invade Iraq? I mean, Al Qaida is the enemy Rove himself said we had to defeat. But we haven't.

Instead of defeating our enemies, we went to war against an impotent enemy - Saddam. And yes, we want to understand. Like, why did they lie to go to war in Iraq? Why is that war still going, unabated? Why are we no closer to victory now, than we were in when Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished"? Why don't our troops have proper ammo? Why aren't there enough boots on the ground in Iraq? Why are we still dying in Afghanistan?

He's right. I want to understand. I don't understand why the administration hasn't called for sacrifice. Why won't war supporters enlist? Why won't they encourage their circle of influence to enlist? Why won't they level with the American people, and give an honest assessment of what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I don't understand how our nation, always the good guys, is now perceived as the "bad guy" the world over. I don't understand how torture has become a commonplace occurrence inside facilities that bear the stars and stripes.
Oh my, it is getting hot. This Rove guy is good. Why?
Rove is trying to divide Americans, using the tired canard of the fringe Right that "liberals hate America."

Fact is, we demand results. And Republicans are showing, again, that they can't govern.

So as their fortunes circle the drain, they resort to outrageous attacks in an attempt to distract from their own incompetence. And their sycophants in their media machine will dutifully salute their superiors and parrot the charges.

And they will cross their fingers and hope that dragging the political discourse even deeper into the mud will distract people from their own incompetence. Standard operating procedure for these guys.
Hey, it works.

Well, if Dick Durbin is forced to apologize for his remarks, what about Rove? The opposition leader in the senate, Harry Reid, says this:
I am deeply disturbed and disappointed that the Bush White House would continue to use the national tragedy of September 11th to try and divide the country. The lesson our country learned on that terrible morning is that we are strongest when we unite together, that America's power is in its common spirit of democracy and freedom.

Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks or he should resign. The lesson of September 11th is not different for conservatives, liberals or moderates. It is equally shared and was repeatedly demonstrated in the weeks and months following this tragedy as Americans of all backgrounds and their elected representatives rallied behind the victims and their families, united in our common determination to bring to justice those responsible for these terrible attacks.

It is time to stop using September 11th as a political wedge issue. Dividing our country for political gain is an insult to all Americans and to the common memory we all carry with us from that day. When it comes to standing up to terrorists, there are no Republicans or Democrats, only Americans. The Administration should be focused on uniting Americans behind our troops and providing them a strategy for success in the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq. I hope the president will join me in repudiating these remarks and urge Mr. Rove to take appropriate action to right this terrible wrong.
No, Harry, no one is going to resign or apologize for anything. He just called you, and everyone who questions things and wants to know more, ineffectual wimps, if not fools. No big deal.

Some people are smart, strong warriors, and don't ask "why" about things. They get smacked? They smack back. That's what real men do.

And note this: "The White House defended Rove's remarks and accused Democrats of engaging in partisan attacks. Rove, said spokesman Scott McClellan, 'was talking about the different philosophies and our different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism.'"

You see, Harry, you're being partisan. It is just a difference in philosophy. Or a difference between men and woman. Or between thinkers and doers. Or something.

Kevin Drum explains how it works:
That's how the Republican party plays the game these days: accuse Democrats of being traitors and poltroons, and then, when they're called on it, turn up the volume even higher while simultaneously pretending that they're just talking about "different philosophies." This is McCarthy level thuggery, and one can only hope that Karl Rove meets the same bad end as the junior senator from Wisconsin.
Poltroons? Spiritless cowards? No one uses that word anymore. (Etymology: Middle French poultron, from Old Italian poltrone, probably akin to poltro colt, ultimately from Latin pullus - young of an animal) And what's this about Joe McCarthy?

In any event, Harry, you lose.

Of course, an organization called "The Families of September 11" have to have their say:
As families whose relatives were victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, we believe it is an outrage that any Democrat, any Republican, any conservative or any liberal, stakes a "high ground" position based upon the September 11th death and destruction. Doing so assumes that all those who died and their loved ones would agree. In truth, some would and some would not. By definition the conduct is divisive and, because it is intended to be self-serving and politicizes 9/11, it is offensive.

We are calling on Karl Rove to resist his temptations and stop trying to reap political gain in the tragic misfortune of others. His comments are not welcome.
Obviously these folks have no shame. A bunch of guys from Saudi Arabia on orders from a tall, strange man in Afghanistan flew those planes into those buildings and killed their family members, so the Bush administration invaded and took over Iraq (close enough) and they don't appreciate it. At least the Bush administration DID something everyone in the world noticed. It may have been the wrong country and for the wrong reasons, but the Bush administration did something. So the Bush administration is claiming the high ground, as they did the wrong thing in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but they did something. And these families are ticked off?

Well, this is all madness. But Karl Rove has stirred things up. But why now?

Something is afoot (not "a foot") as David Shuster at MSNBC points out:
I don't know if things are getting better or worse in Iraq. But I do know the Bush administration is now in total panic mode over the erosion of public support for the occupation. How else could one explain the President's bizarre radio address this past Saturday or the even more surreal comments recently from other administration officials?

First, the president's radio address: On Saturday President Bush defended the war in Iraq saying, "We went to war because we were attacked." Huh? In September 2003, the President himself stated, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks." (For the record, the 9/11 Commission is on the side of the Sept. 2003 President Bush - The commission found there was "no collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.")

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said criticism of the handling of the war isn't justified because "The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq." What? That was said... but it came from Senators pouring cold water on the administration's optimistic pre-war predictions. What were those predictions? Vice President Cheney (March 16, 2003) said, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly... in weeks rather than months." Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on Feb. 7, 2003 said, "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." Former Budget director Mitch Daniels (March 28, 2003) stated, "The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid."

Iraq will not require sustained aid? Hmmm. Today, Congress voted to send the Pentagon another $45 billion for operations in Iraq. That brings the total amount appropriated so far, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to $322.40 billion.

The administration seems to think that by shifting the justification for the war or changing what administration officials said 3 years ago, the president's poll numbers will magically turn around. The pretzel shaped logic of this strategy is mind-boggling. And one begins to wonder if the gang that helped President Bush win a 2nd term has been stuffed into a closet.

The math on this is simple. If the war was going well, the public would support the occupation of Iraq, regardless of whatever reasons the administration gave for the invasion. The problem is, according to republican Senator Chuck Hagel, "The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along."

And now, the public is tired of this deadly trip through fantasyland - a place where White House P.R. strategies seem to matter more than holding anybody accountable for the war's mistakes and mismanagement.
Panic mode? Maybe. But the spin is increasing.

This is going to be interesting.

__

Just after midnight, Friday morning, June 24, Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly has an interesting question:
IS DICK DURBIN A TRAITOR?

I'm a little curious about something related to yesterday's Karl Rove affair. Most of the attention seems to have focused on his "liberals offered therapy and understanding" sentence, but isn't the following passage really the more serious one?

"Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

It's one thing to make belligerent pronouncements that contrast conservative toughness with liberal wimpiness. It's nasty and demeaning, but hardly something we haven't heard before. The Al Jazeera passage, on the other hand, goes considerably further: it says specifically that the motive of Dick Durbin and others who criticize prisoner abuse is to put our troops in danger. He didn't say Durbin was merely careless, he said Durbin wanted to put our troops in greater danger. That's treason.

Generally speaking, I tend not to get too bent out of shape by occasional rhetorical howlers. It's just part of the game. But calling Durbin and his fellow liberals traitors - which is clearly what that passage suggests - really is beyond the pale coming from a highly placed political official, isn't it? Or am I missing something here?

UPDATE: RNC chair Ken Mehlman offered the bizarrely feeble excuse that "Karl didn't say the Democratic Party. He said liberals." What's up with that? Isn't Dick Durbin a Democrat?
Is calling those who criticize what we do traitors beyond the pale? Don't know.

Bill O'Reilly on the June 20 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly had this to say (audio clip here): "...you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor."

Lots of people say such things, and never make clear what they see as the difference between what is "dissent" and what is this "undermining" stuff. If they are not terribly offended by what you say it's dissent. If it makes them uncomfortable you are "undermining" our country; and that is, in fact, treason. They get to choose. Not a good situation. You have to be very careful.

And there may be a difference when such things are said by a talk show blowhard and when such things are said by an official of the White House.

And see this on the House this week backing an amendment to forbid desecrating the American flag. Aaron at Tacitus on the state attempting "to sanctify its symbol" -
That is, in effect, what this amendment would do. The language even implies holiness - to forbid the desecration of an object suggests that the object is consecrated in the first place. Now if this passes as a constitutional amendment then critics can hardly say it's unconstitional, but it does seem contrary to the spirit of our Bill of Rights. I am loathe to invoke the founding fathers and "original intent", as such maneuvering is always vague and really just political posturing, but I do honestly feel that any amendment which restricts our rights, rather than enhances them, is a bad idea. The other big example (prohibition) didn't exactly turn out too well - it is not the purpose of the constitution to restrict individual behavior but rather restrict governmental behavior.

Now there is much debate about what sort of precedent this would establish, whether it is a slippery slope to restricting more political speech.

... These critiques are pertinent, but I feel they distract from the core issue, and that is that, slippery slope or no, using the constitution to restrict freedom is wrong. Using the constitution to enforce this kind of nationalistic loyalty is also wrong, and particularly creepy with the religious "consecration" flavor. I do not think that this is necessarily the first step to further free speech restriction, but I do think it could be yet another step in the theocratization of America. This scares me far more than the issue of free speech. Consecrating and enshrining a nationalistic symbol is something done by a theocracy, not a democracy. We respect and love our symbols, but recognize that that is what they are - symbols.

... I have no interest in burning the flag. ... But if this amendment passes, I will find myself sorely tempted to join those who will no doubt protest, and perhaps even burn a flag myself. It may seem childish, but it is perhaps the only act that will be recognized by the government and by the media and the people. If enough stand up, then they will have to be listened to.
And this is from a conservative.

Things really are coming to a head, as you can see in this comment from Eric Alterman's column at MSNBC. A New Yorker from Manhattan, Siva Vaidhyanathan, says this -
All we asked for was our country's support. All we got was a president who lied about everything, including the dangers we all shared from breathing in the charred dust and smoke of the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero. He promised us justice. Instead we got shame.

New York still stands tall, liberals and conservatives together. We still talk about those days when we weren't sure everyone we loved had lived through it, when we weren't sure if there would be more coming soon. All we could be sure of is that we were going to persevere and triumph, that we would stand united and strong. Today, despite Karl Rove's best efforts, we still stand united and strong.

And we still wonder when we will see justice.

Karl Rove should hang out here long enough to see that.

But, as Rick told Major Strasser in Casablanca, "There are some parts of New York where I wouldn't suggest you go."
And our high-powered Wall Street attorney, and sometimes contributor to Just Above Sunset, from his office high over the big hole where the World Trade Center towers stood, adds more, as he was there, and is still there -
The strange thing is that I still remember the smell that day from midtown as well as the smell downtown forty-eight hours later. It was the smell of burned building, burned electronics, and a smell one couldn't or wouldn't quite place. As I recall, there was a fair amount of ash on my shoes that day, and I wondered for a moment if it was all just concrete and plaster or something else.

Regarding the dangers we shared - we still share them, which is why the EPA has not blessed the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building next door to my office. The DB building is shrouded in a black canvas of sorts. Also, as Alan can tell you all, ground zero is the absent building next door to the office in which I am writing this email.

Unfortunately, there will always be the Karl Roves among us. The question is how to collectively move past them and move the United States back into the international community where, with a bit of cooperation (not bluster) a great deal can be accomplished.

Perhaps not, but looking out on New York Harbor, it could happen.
Yes, I have been to his office, and from the thirty-second floor you can look out and down on the Statue of Liberty in the harbor below (this is the view as darkness closes in). My grandparents saw it long ago as they arrived. The French gave it to us on the centennial of our starting this experiment. And now?

Perhaps we should not let Rove and his boss mess this up any more than they have already.

__

Minor note on minor spin:

Above there is the idea that the administration sees itself as a brotherhood of smart, strong warriors, who don't ask "why" about things. They get smacked? They smack back. That's what real men do. Folks who think about things - liberals, Democrats - are the fools.

An example?

On June 22 Bush made an official visit the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant near Washington. In addition to stressing how much we need to move to nuclear power (like the French?) he really put energy secretary Samuel Bodman in his place. This is exactly why people voted for him, or he thinks people will continue to support him. This speaks to core of the "values" issues here.

From the White House transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate the Secretary of Energy joining me today. He's a good man, he knows a lot about the subject, you'll be pleased to hear. I was teasing him - he taught at MIT, and - do you have a PhD?

SECRETARY BODMAN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, a PhD. (Laughter.) Now I want you to pay careful attention to this - he's the PhD, and I'm the C student, but notice who is the advisor and who is the President.
Fred Becker at wonkette.com -
Yipee! Take a field trip and have your ego smashed. Ain?t it great fun? The Army should try this to get its recruitment numbers up: "Now I want you to pay careful attention to this - he's the soldier, I'm the one who avoided active service, but look who's sending people to die?"
Is this a slip-up, or part of the values initiative, to keep in touch with real Americans, who really do despise people who think too much?

Last February, with Andrew Biggs, one of his Social Security officials, this:
THE PRESIDENT: Tell them whether or not we got a problem or not, from your perspective.

DR. BIGGS: Put simply, we do, in fact, have a problem.

THE PRESIDENT: By the way, this guy -- PhD. See, I was a C student. (Laughter.) He's a PhD, so he's probably got a little more credibility. I do think it's interesting and should be heartening for all C students out there, notice who's the President and who's the advisor. (Laughter and applause.) All right, Andrew, get going. (Applause.) Andrew's got a good sense of humor.
In March, at Auburn University, to one of the professors, one Mark Brown, this:
THE PRESIDENT: I've asked Jeff Brown to join me. He is a professor. He can tell you where - where do you profess? (Laughter.)

DR. BROWN: I have a PhD in economics, and I teach at a business school.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. It's an interesting lesson here, by the way. He's an advisor. Now, he is the PhD, and I am a C-student - or was a C-student. Now, what's that tell you? (Laughter and applause.) All you C-students at Auburn, don't give up. (Laughter and applause.)
You get the idea. And Brendan Nyhan at Duke University was the one who found these last two. And he adds this comment: "Given Bush's frequent need to mock experts with graduate degrees, it's no wonder his administration has a pathological aversion to expert advice. After all, who's the president?"

Ah well, the lines have been drawn.

Posted by Alan at 17:24 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 24 June 2005 16:36 PDT home

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