Tom Watson

On the Road

A portion of my evening reading has been keeping me up deep into the night, placing me in the uncomfortable territory between sleep and thought, between the world of dreams and productive consciousness. It's not Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, a real reporter's book by Thomas Ricks, which painstakingly lays out the claim for utter incompetence in Iraq. Nor is it Plan of Attack, by the former reporter Bob Woodward, an insider who flips on his Administration sources and gets them to turn viciously on each other. Both books are chilling - horrific tales of a failed Presidency and an immoral foreign policy. But with those, I can take a sip, switch off the light, and slip into what Bob Dylan calls "a temporary death."

Not so with The Road.

Cormac McCarthy's brilliant portrait of humanity's winter is a short read, but a very, very long digestion. The story of a man and his son walking toward the sea after a cataclysm - nuclear? environmental? natural? we don't know and aren't told - is relentlessly bleak and pessimistic. Man has destroyed the planet; nothing grows. The only food surviving is years-old stores of goods as yet unfound by marauders and thin survivors - and other humans, hunted by gangs of killers.

A caution tale? I sensed none - just a tale, however horrible, however plausible. The ancient pull in the book is of a father's determination to see his child outlive him; to see another generation on its way, in whatever landscape it finds itself. Ash falls. But a few hearts still beat.

All this is in long introduction to a recent post by Glenn Greenwald entited American values. These too can be thrown away, leaving us on a wild and abandoned road. Maybe McCarthy is sending a warning after all - surely, contemporary literature reaches beyond the headlines to capture the truth. This is ours:

...by studying the torture methods used by America's enemies -- those uncivilized, evil regimes and groups we are always hearing about -- we learned how to torture people and then decided to copy their torture techniques. As always, the "rationale" of the Bush administration is that in order to defend our values and culture from the evil forces seeking to destroy us, we have to become as much like them as possible and copy their behavior....

... These extreme and vile techniques became standard operating procedure for how we interrogate detainees. Far worse, five years after September 11, the U.S. Congress -- right out in the open -- voted expressly to authorize the use of most if not all of these techniques and empower the President to use them at will. Put another way, our country, after five years of distance from 9/11 and after much debate and deliberation, decided to enshrine this behavior as legally authorized and reflective of our new national values.

Barak Obama and Stuart Garcia

Watching the rise of Barak Obama, I am reminded of no one so much as Stuart Garcia. A year apart at Columbia in the early 80s, they were early-form good government, activist types during a decidedly non-activist period on Morningside Heights. Stuart believed in student government and took a very active, public role. Obama was involved in the anti-Apartheid movement, which provided the only truly active political moments during my four years there.

I knew Stuart Garcia, but didn't run into Barak Obama. Stuart was my class year, Obama the year before, and he was a transfer student. Not that I looked, mind you; too many brain cells were busy meeting their wonderful ends.

But I thought of Stuart a lot as I digested all the recent Barak hoopla, and I thought: there but for the killer virus goes my former psych lab partner, fellow freshman orientation carouser, and friend.

Stuart Garcia was one of the early casualties of AIDS, dying only two years after graduation, in 1986. He was a natural politician, had the common touch. Short, friendly, with a shock of thick straight hair that levitated when he walked. There is no doubt in my mind that he'd be a figure in politics had he lived, either in his native Texas or somewhere else. He was open, not shy, a friend to all - my opposite, in those years, really. And he was 23 when he died. Steve Waldman, who was a close friend, summed it up well in his recent BeliefNet column:

It seemed especially cruel because Stuart was one of those people who seemed destined to do something important. I met him in college when he was the president of the student body and I was the editor of the school newspaper. He had that rare combination of talent, earnestness, and ambition that makes for great men and women.

Sounds like Obama's current press to me. A couple of Stuart memories: being hypnotized together during freshman orientation in front of hundreds of mocking classmates; taking Stuart to Max's Kansas City and introducing the kid from Texas to the New York music scene (and finding that we shared a common love for Joe "King" Carrasco, who was then the rage in the downtown clubs); locking each other in refrigerator-sized isolation booths to gauge our reaction to various stimuli in Skinner psychology; chatting briefly with Jesse Jackson, he as the big student government dude, me as the accidental tourist on the way to pick up pizza for a Stratomatic marathon. He was the activist. I was, er, something else entirely.

Barak Obama has a ton of hype to live up to, and he may well do it. I like what I hear, and I like how he goes about it, the respect he shows for all audiences. He's a Columbia guy from the early 80s who still lives his early activism at a higher level. And there are whispers of Stuart Garcia when he talks.

Racist, Gay-Bashing, Misogynist Merchants of Fear

When you strip the Republican Party of its lead in the polls, of its electoral path to the trough, you leave it with one thing to sell - fear itself. Fear mixed with hate, broadcast with winks, and covered with a slim and slimy garnish of official disavowal. How pathetic. Two weeks to go and this is all they've got:

The disgraceful race-baiting ad in Massachusetts aimed at black Democratic nominee for governor, Deval Patrick.

The hideous Rush Limbaugh-led attack on the motives - and acting ability - of Michael J. Fox for his support of Missouri candidate Claire McCaskill.

The gross race-baiting of the RNC with its now-infamous miscegenation-mongering spot on behalf of Bob Corker against his black opponent Harold Ford in Tennessee.

The anti-homosexual campaign run by Ohio Republican Ken Blackwell, who accused his Democratic rival for governor, Rep. Ted Strickland of supporting the platform of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association.

There are more examples - many more. It's all about playing to people's fears, to the small minority that hates but it big enough to turn elections. It's about the remnants of the old hateful Southern Strategy that elected Ronald Reagan. The GOP runs on a fuel called "values," but it's a fuel that is distilled from a crude call hatred. And now they're desperate. Jason nails it:

Since the conservative wing took over the GOP the Party has pronounced it's moral superiority to all comers: Republicans are God-fearing folk who believe in the primacy of personal responsibility. Decisions about governing must be made with moral clarity, a lucidity of vision only true believers are said to possess. The veneer of moral superiority with which conservatives painted the Republican party has always been a thin one. Yet it has remained durable enough, withstanding lobbyist scandals going back to the Reagan years and the repeated public dissembling of its highest officers.

The veneer is rubbing away, though. The tactic is too obvious. Their product comes to market on November 7th. Want more - follow these links [via Lindsay]:

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Spencer for Ire

You've met guys like John Spencer. They're one way in a group or in public, another flavor entirely when it's just man to man. Or white guy to white guy. Or heterosexual to heterosexual. That's when they let down their PC guard and slip into "guys like us" mode.

It's on the plane. Or in the restroom. Or at the bar. First comes the nod, then the conspiratorial look. Look, let's cut to the chase, it says. We know what's really going on here, guys like us. Women are the worst co-workers. Immigrants bring down the property values. Blacks are lazy. Homosexuals disgust guys like us.

Let's stop pretending and share our in-bred hatred, our prejudice. Guys like us, we're not so different.

Ben Smith sat across from one of those guys on the Jet Blue flight to Rochester last week. John Spencer knew Ben pushes political copy for the News, but what the heck, let's tell the truth, my man. That Hillary Clinton looks okay now, but: "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew. I don't know why Bill married her." Must've had millions in plastic surgery.

See, guys like Spencer assume other "guys like us" agree with such obvious observations - so why would it be reported, right? Ben, however, knew he had wood. And now, that tough guy John Spencer is denying he made the statement. He's probably hurt, figures Ben broke the code. That Ben doesn't understand guys like him.

Coda: why do politicians of the opposing party so continually approach Senator Clinton bearing gifts? Howard Wolfson must be wondering when batting practice is gonna end...

Out and About

• Barrons writer Jim McTague eschews polling data to pick the winners in the mid-term elections little more than two weeks hence. His chrystal ball is forged solely in money: his names the victors by fundraising dollars. And he argues that the Republicans will hold on - barely - to majorities in both houses on Nov. 9th. This may cheer Cheney and Rove, but I don't believe it, good reading as it is. Still and all, complaisance, eh?
• Jeff Jarvis was one of the original war-bloggers, a self-described liberal who cheered the myth of the purple finger and called antiwar types "eeyores" back in the heady days of shock and awe. I recall Jeff saying thusly: "The problem I have with the Eeyores is that for all intents and purposes, they refused to see the positive in the election and the start of a new democracy; they refused to think first of the human rights of the Iraqi people and instead thought of their own political agenda and political anti's. That's Eeyoreism." Well, Jeff has tossed in the towel and pinned on the donkeys ears. Given up. He follows the lead of his favorite Iraqi blogger and says this: "...the execution, I saw too late after our “victory,” was hopeless and shameful. And, of course, it has only gotten worse as it has gotten more stubborn." Jeff predicts that many of us will "nya-nya" him, but the opposite is true. The comments are respectful and worth reading.
• The prolific Lindsay Beyerstein has an update on a truly horrific story you won't hear about at a White House briefing: the sentencing of seven Iranian women to death by stoning. Lindsay's been all over this story and it deserves more attention, even as we focus on the elcetions.
• Joe Gandelman highlights the most amazing quote by President Bush - ever. It's a stunner.
• Glenn Reynolds never mentions race per se, but he describes why he can't bring himself to pull the lever for Harold Ford. "I just don't think the Democrats are ready for a majority right now." Uh-huh.
• Brendan Tween nails the difference in this war, and the craven, immoral actions of this Administration: "Our government cuts taxes for the rich by increasing deficits and dramatically increasing borrowing from countries that are not our friends, while it takes our most vulnerable citizens and ships them off to war." Ea\xactly.

Go Down Swinging, Son

The 11-year-old was crying at midnight on Thursday, as I arrived home rumpled and tired from a black tie dinner in midtown, having witnessed Endy Chavez's all-time grab in a hotel suite, and hearing the last of this year's Mets on the train. He was trying to read Lord of the Rings, but he had a hard time concentrating on the menace of Mordor (not the faux Santorum misread) and getting his mind off of Carlos Beltran - still frozen like a collectible statue version of himself at home plate as the Cardinals whooped it up.

Unlike Beltran, my little guy is anything but diffident in defeat. He was shattered, and remains down even today, even as the millionaires from Shea have most likely moved on emotionally from their loss and scattered to the warmer climates they came from. Even in this age, kids still identify with their sports heroes and they take it personally when the team comes so far and loses.

Of course, it gave me the perfect opportunity for one of those classic object lessons. First, there was the requisite "they'll get 'em next year," even as I knew he'd never be 11 again, this fragile, this welcoming of victory. He kept talking about Beltran. "He didn't even swing Dad! You have to swing in game 7 with two outs and the bases loaded in the ninth. You have to swing, Dad."

Right boy. You have to swing. Life's often about recognizing opportunities and making a decisive move. I've missed many, but knocked a handful up the alley as well. I told him this. He nodded, but he didn't look all that convinced. To him, this team is a collection of characters - the effervescent Jose Reyes, the bubbling David Wright, the quiet Beltran, the regal Carlos Delgado, the everyman Cliff Floyd, the goofball Pedro Martinez, the competent Tom Glavine, and knuckle-busting Paul LoDuca. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was taking their loss far greater than they were. He roots for love. They play for money. And he's right to think it might not be the same next year, for him or for the Mets.

Fred Wilson sums up the season this way: "You gotta take what you can get in life and I love these 2006 Mets." Steve Gilliard says being a Mets fan is an act of faith; like being a Democrat, I'd add. Says Steve:

Ya Gotta Believe is the Mets slogan for a reason. Because you just have to hope they can pull it out, and know that they more often than not won't. With life there is hope and with the Mets, there is always hope.

My analysis: the starting pitching, except for the quitter Steve Trachsel, was excellent and we've found two young bottom rotation guys in Perez and Maine. The hitting, as it has been all year, was bi-polar - overwhelming or silent. And David Wright simply was a pedestrian player from the moment the homerun-hitting contest ended in Pittsburgh; he remains the popular young boy-next-door but he'd better skip some of the hoopla, and rid himself of the destructive love of hitting with two strikes every trip to the plate. He was not a factor in the second half. That said, there's a nucleus here, Omar is brilliant, and Willie radiates calm leadership. My only worry: will they become the Braves or the post-2000 New York Yankees, regular season monsters, post-season mice?

Today there's a fall festival at school, a birthday tonight, a scout dinner tomorrow - so the 11-year-old has plenty to do. He's back reading Tolkien as well. As Lance notes, nothing happens by accident in Middle Earth. Not so in baseball.

Runnin' Scared

Here in the blue state Northeast, there have long been a bunch of offices that seemingly were in Republican hands now and forever more, held by so-called moderates who rarely faced serious, well-financed challengers from an often disorganized Democratic Party. This year, that has changed all over the region, no more so than in the 19th CD in the Hudson Valley, north of where I live. Former rock star John Hall is mounting a very serious challenge for Sue Kelly, and has taken over the lead in the polls. Hall is serious, moderate in tone, and very well-spoken. What happened today is priceless - watch the video below and see a Republican Member of Congress literally run away - flee in fear - from the cameras of the local public service television show, and the classic "empty chair" scenario unfold at the local League of Women Voters. I suspect Sue Kelly is running from more than the TV camera - she's running away from George W. Bush, from the war, from the Congressional scandals, from incompetent leadership, from the lies. You want local Republican fear in 2006, a sense of what's happening on the ground? Watch Sue Kelly run.

What Newt Sowed, GOP Reaps

Bereft Republicans looking for someone to blame for what seems to be the impending demolition of their ruling coalition (and I'm not convinced yet that it's coming) need look no further than the icon they once scorned, Newt Gingrich. The hypocritical political salesman peddled tax cuts and family values door to door, but became the model for "do as I say, not as I do" Republican leadership. He also led the Nasty Revolution, which turned Washington politics into a no survivors, attack-only wasteland. Leave it to Digby to nail it to the church door:

It really can't be overstated how Newt's bare knuckle style of politics changed the way things worked in Washington. When it was combined with the big money media operations that finally came to fruition during that era --- Limbaugh, FOX etc. --- any old fashioned notions of political comity went out the window. And it was such a strong series of below the belt punches that it knocked the Democrats to the ground for nearly a decade. (It was providence that the Democratic president at the time was a skilled rope-a-dope fighter who could withstand a relentless rain of blows.)

The assault on the political system was so intense that they even pushed the nuclear button and impeached the president for trivial, political purposes. The president's very successful governance and the Senate requirement for a supermajority were all that kept them from going through with it. In the aftermath of the 2000 election, with the use sophisticated media techniques and manipulation of the various levers of government under their control, they managed to seize control of the presidency despite a dubious outcome in a state run by the president's own brother --- and they got away with it. (They even got the press to repeat their snide mantra: "get over it.")

Think about that. Within one two-year period, the Republicans tried to remove a legitimately elected and popular president from office on a purely partisan basis and then assumed the presidency through an unprecedented partisan Supreme Court decision after losing the popular vote.

We all watched that happen, many of us not realizing how extraordinary and how dangerously undemocratic the US political system had become. It was all "legitimate" after all. No laws were broken. Newt's take-no-prisoners political style had become normal. But it was nothing compared to what was to come.

Read the whole damned thing, it's brilliant. Let's hope it's an elegy.

Game Six

The Mets are up 2-0 against a tough Cardinals team in Game Six on the NLCS. They either hold this game or they're done, a 97-win season ending two games shy of the World Series. A good year - especially given the recent past - but not a great one. Yet I don't despair. I'm not crying. Sleep finds me resting sweetly. I'm not crazed for two reasons: one, this team is built with a core that will be strong for a decade. They'll be good next year and they'll find more starting pitching.

But there's something else. I'm not as tied up with wins and losses any more. It must be age. I've been Met-obsessed since 1969. I was born on the day the first pitchers and catchers ever assembled in Florida. The franchise has been part of my life forever. We're Mets fans because previous generations were New York Giants fans, National Leaguers. This is something passed down. But I'm just not as emotionally wed to whether they win or lose. I'm older. I know how the business of big league sports works. I don't identify with the players, except possibly for Julio Franco, four years my senior. I love the Mets, but I'll shrug off an NLCS loss like the slightest of colds. It won't drag me down.

Don't get me wrong, I dig this team. Starting with Reyes, of course. And Wright, Delgado and Beltran. But I'm not wearing their jerseys. I've got a Seaver jersey around somewhere. That's it. Love the game, follow the team, live for baseball - but not too high, or too low over the outcome.

My kids are different. This morning, my 11-year-old was dragging butt all over the house getting ready for school. He looked sad. Scruffy said. Little boy sad.

"What's the matter?"

"The Mets, Dad."

"We'll get 'em next year. And they might pull it out."

"It's a long time, Dad. We were sooooo close."

And he talked about how badly Jose and David and Carlos would feel. And what about Cliff, the team good guy - why, it might be his last game as a Met?! (This from a kid who cried over the Xavier Nady trade).

Didn't have the heart to tell him that he cared more about the uniform than some of his heroes. That big money had changed the game. That it was a huge entertainment business valued in the billions. The kid believes in his Mets. This is something worthy to pass along. And even after he learns some of the hard lessons and the game isn't as pure and idealistic, I think he'll still love it. Still see poetry and perfection in 90 feet, three outs, four balls, and 60 feet, six inches.

I still do, but I'm cool about it. That said - Let's Go Mets!

UPDATE: Mets won 4-2,although Wagner was incredibly shaky with a four-run lead in the ninth. Love to watch that Reyes play ball.

This Choir Needs Preaching

Earlier, I said we digress. Now, I'm convinced we fairly quake. With Democrats poised to throw Republicans from power on Capitol Hill and destroy the Bush Administration's day-to-day agenda with two years of hearings and recrimination, fear ripples through the ranks like an October blast across the waters of the left. See the whitecaps.

Democratic victory is not going to rescue America from America. One need only listen to the candidates grasp at the same bread-and-butter pieties of Patriotism, Security, and Constitution to know that. "Tax relief for the middle class" doesn't sell me. I am not an incrementalist. "Tougher and smarter on security" sells me even less. Why should I waste my beautiful mind, as Bar Bush put it, on the selection of the less egregious users of euphemism, when I know already that they will roll on issues of significance and spend their time hawking bastardized medical subsidies and pledging to keep social security as it is, was, and ever shall be. I haven't heard a Democrat mention our habeasless nation in weeks; it slipped from their minds as quickly as it slipped from the minds of the public upon receipt of that great gift: knoweldge that Mark Foley may well have slipped something else somewhere scandalous.

Victory isn't good enough. A national mea culpa won't do it. Investigations and self-examination don't get it done. An over-the-horizon pullback from the Iraq morass is a half-measure. Incrementally more competent, in-touch, less doctrinaire leadership is merely an infield single. It's all not enough.

IOZ's post above - Kill Democrats. Eat Republicans. - gives voice to what's buzzing through Democratic ranks. The polls are scaring us: it's like a Dolls album, too much too soon. The Foley scandal has broken the dike, but it's not good enough, damnit! We're not winning on the issues we care about! We're not winning on our own terms! Given how bad Bush has screwed up, the back bench never looked so freaking good. Ah the comforts of knowing you're always right.

But now, they tell us, we're going to win; we may win total Congressional control. Then what?

This is going to be particularly tough on the lefty blogosphere. We've built an opposition machine that is as perfect in its complexity and pitch as anything every constructed in politics. We follow every line, every scandal, every lie and we turn them inside out, open source coverage of the bads guys. We oppose very, very well indeed. And we don't invest our hearts in politicians.

My original comments tweaking Mannion and Blue Girl were semi-serious, but I think the reaction has revealed the true motivation of the lefty bloggers. We want the evil-doers vanquished, but we're not necessarily sold on our home team. The names Reid, Pelosi, Schumer and Emanuel don't exactly send a frisson of righteousness through the ranks. Neddie Jingo always has the requisite portion of cynicism (I love the crank) and he tweaks me for what he calls using the "Inexorable Power of Our Prose to demonstrate the Righteousness of Our Cause." Good stuff, and I think he sums up how the lefty bloggers really feel about Victory '06.

With something like this thought in mind, a couple weekends ago I marched up to the Jim Webb tent at the Lovettsville Octoberfest, buttonholed a woman with a clipboard, handed her $100 and allowed as to how I'd like to volunteer. I put my daytime, evening and cell phone numbers down on a signup sheet, told her I'd be happy to do phones, stuff envelopes, man tables -- everything except do door-to-door canvassing. (Bad hip and near-pathological aversion to Real Live People. 'Nuff Sed.)

I never heard back from her.

A friend of mine who's heavily into the local Democratic Party machine told me Webb's campaign is pretty disorganized. So be it.

So I'm trying again.

Early in my career as a journalist, I covered nothing but Bronx Democrats, almost no Republicans. The scandals were legion. Citisource. Wedtech. The school boards. Procurement. Cable television. There were kickbacks, and bribes, and brown paper bags. All the while, the national party was compromising with Reagan, who won his power by appealing to the remnants of racism in the south and by blaming the poor for the failings of government. Steve Gilliard knows a thing or two about disillusionment as a lifelong Democrat, and he neatly covers previous political failures as we stood by and watched:

So what did the Dems do? Nothing. They mocked the fundies, but they never figured out how to reach the ones who would listen and they existed.

But it was more than that. As the GOP built up databases and contacts with evangelicals and getting them to turn out, the Dems were increasingly restricting their efforts to "key" districts. What that did was leave the GOP free to use their financial advantage against Dems.

Ineptitude became common in Democratic efforts. Bad candidates, bad advice and more importantly, shitty strategic thinking.

Look at the Dean campaign. If the problems of the Democratic party could be summed up in one, easy to understand lesson, it was Howard Dean.

Glenn Greenwald correctly posits that the other side never worries about being wrong, while we do - all the time. And he argues strongly for saying what we really mean, running on our core beliefs, even if our core belief today is anger:

The single most erroneous and destructive premise among the Beltway political class -- which includes the Democratic consulting class along with their intellectual twins in the David-Broder-led punditry circles -- is that anger and passion are the enemies of successful political movements. They preach a mindset of fear and defensiveness -- never articulate a view too strenuously and never be driven by principle or passion because to do so renders one an unmoderate extremist who will alienate normal Americans.

Whatever else you might want to say about them, the Bush-led Republicans embrace their radical ideas enthusiastically and are never shy about advocating them. But the mentality of the Democratic consultancy and pundit class have, outside of that extremist GOP crevice, stripped our political system of any real conviction, passion, belief, and resolve.

Democrats so rarely mold, shape or drive public opinion because their consultants and pundits operate from the premise that passion and principle are to be avoided at all costs. Stripped to its essence, the core advice of these consultants, which most national Democrats have been embracing, is to follow, not lead.

Meanwhile as DemFromCT says, the media's narrative building - and it's a self-inflicted wound. Where does that leave us? I don't know, but when I'm picking up that bar tab, we'll have something serious to discuss - amidst the celebrating, for a victory that half scares us to death.