If the election debacle of 2000 taught us one thing, it should have been that the electoral college is a ridiculous institution, an anachronism in a time when 97% of the population is literate and most of the population is middle-class. Originally instituted to insulate the electoral process from the groundlings, the electoral college ensures a few things: one, that only about a dozen states out of fifty will get attention from presidential candidates; two, that third parties are irrelevant; three, that a candidate can be in a situation where less than fifty-one percent of the country wants him elected and still be elected anyway; and four, that if no candidate receives fifty-one percent of the vote, the electoral process is taken away from the people and ushered into the halls of Congress.

Only twice in our country’s history have we been in a situation where the person with the most votes lost. In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote over John Quincy Adams, but he only received a plurality of the electoral votes. In the electoral college, a plurality is not enough. If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, then the election is sent to the House of Representatives to decide. The House preferred Adams to Jackson and voted him into office. The second time the person with the most votes lost was in 1876. Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote over Rutherford B. Hayes, but again, he did not receive a majority of the electoral votes. In that case, nineteen electoral votes in three Southern states and one vote in Oregon were in dispute due to voter fraud. After months of debate and dealings in smoke-filled rooms, Hayes was awarded the twenty electoral votes in exchange for a speedier reconstruction in the South and the withdrawal of federal troops from the statehouses in those three states, which were preventing Democratic governors from taking office.

Besides insulating the process from the uneducated masses, the electoral college was supposed to give some leverage to small states, which would otherwise be ostensibly ignored on the campaign trail: why campaign in New Hampshire when there were more votes in Virginia? The electoral college system made the small states matter, for a candidate could amass the electoral votes of many small states or a few large states. In 2004, the importance has shifted from small states and large states so-called red and blue states and "swing" states. "Red" states are those states which appear red on a national map, meaning that their electoral votes are likely to go to the Republican candidate. Most of the south and west states vote this way. "Blue" states vote Democrat. This is New England and the middle Atlantic states, California, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Every other state is a "swing" state, where no one can know for sure which way it will go. It is these swing states that candidates focus on the most: why waste my time in California when I know everyone will vote a particular way, when I can spend my time trying to get other, unattached states on my bandwagon?

I live in Ohio, so I have been bombarded with TV advertisements for both candidates (and against both candidates). In states like South Carolina, which is solidly Republican, or Washington, D.C., which is solidly Democrat, no one hears a peep.

Eliminating the electoral college would take care of that nasty tendency our system has of shutting out third parties. In every state, the candidate that wins a majority of the popular vote receives all of that state’s electoral votes. This means that a candidate’s goal is not getting a majority of the popular vote throughout the country, but getting a majority of the popular vote in a few key states. Under the electoral college, less than 51% of the people can vote for a candidate nationwide, but that candidate can still become the president. The effect of this system is to shut out third parties; they will never receive electoral votes. Indeed, one of the few times in history when a third-party candidate received electoral votes was in 1992 when Ross Perot’s Reform Party carried one or two states. In such a moderate country, an extremist party like Ralph Nader’s Green Party will never see the light of day, since he will never receive any electoral votes. In a close election, the electoral college discourages third parties, since they will necessarily draw some of the precious few electoral votes away from one of the candidates, making the margins all the more razor-thin.

Given the advances in technology since 1789, candidates can focus on multiple states at once at relatively low cost. Even the system of television syndication allows a candidate to easily have his advertisement placed on hundreds of networks around the country. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill had some unintended consequences that we are able to see only now. One of these consequences was the increased importance of individuals and PACs to get messages across. Campaigns have fundraising limits, but MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth do not; therefore, they can do as good as job or better as official campaigns at getting messages out to voters. Never before have non-candidate entities had some much say in the outcome of an election.

The United States is ideologically and technologically ready to move to a system of direct election. When vote margins are as thin as they were in the election of 2000, they cannot be wiped away and approximated through the electoral college. A situation in which the will of the minority has the force of law is not a situation that should be expected of a democracy. The electoral college system, however, has that possibility built into it, allowing for a result that is antithetical to the meaning of "democracy."

Posted by Mark at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, kids. Halloween is in two days. An article at X-Entertainment inspired me to wonder: what are the best scary movies ever? This Halloween, find someone you love [to scare] and sit down with them on a comfortable couch [and then when they're not looking, put on a creepy mask and scare the crap out of them!] and watch the Best Scary Movies Ever (in no particular order, that's for sure).

1. Scream (1996)

Wes Craven did it again, revitalizing the scary film genre with a twist. While Scream was a return to the old horror film formula, it was simultaneously self-aware, making fun of the conventions of scary movies at the same time it utilized those conventions. The killer in this movie is super-scary if only for the voice modulator he uses over the phone.

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Zombies! George A. Romero began the modern zombie film genre in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. The plot? Some people in a farmhouse are beseiged by the undead. Zombies chasing people is pretty scary, and George Romero followed this up with a remake of the original in 1990 which was just as scary.

3. The Evil Dead (1981)

Here's where it all started: four friends go to a cabin for the weekend and unwittingly release ... the evil dead!. Filled with more gore than you can shake a severed arm at, The Evil Dead bombards you with blood and guts, including a spectacular head-melting scene at the end.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Before the franchise went to hell (no pun intended), Freddy Krueger was creepy ... as hell. In the first film, he was a scarred, undead monster with a razor-fingered glove. Holy crap! He spoke very little, except when it was absolutely necessary to taunt the characters. Later flims had Freddy exploit his comic genius, making the character less scary and more hokey. The original, though, remains one of the scariest scary movies. It also launched the career of Johnny Depp, who ultimately explodes in a fantastic geyser of blood.

5. Halloween (1978)

Sure, Jason may have been creepy, but Mike Myers was a real guy! Put into a mental institution after killing his sister's boyfriend, Myers escapes and tries to kill her again! Also stars the late Donald Pleasance, who really doesn't understand how to survive a scary movie (but he does, anyway).

6. Alien (1979)

Wait a minute, Mark: Alien? Yes, Rhetorical Device Speaker. Alien. The secret to the first Alien film was not overdoing it on the alien parts. Most of the time, the alien was suggested by sounds, and when it did appear, it was well worth it. The film contains more "jump" moments than that song "Jump On It" (or whatever it's called). It may be science fiction, but that doesn't mean it can't be a scary movie, too.

7. The Ring (2002)

She gets closer and closer to the TV screen. She's almost touching it. But it's just a videotape, right? And then, holy crap, she's coming out of the TV! Sweet sassy crap, she's coming out of the TV! The Ring can be annoying in certain parts -- like when it's trying to develop an intricate parts -- but it can be really scary in others (like that last scene where she freakin' comes out of the TV!).

8. Child's Play (1988)

I have never seen this movie due to my morbid fear of walking, talking, homicidal toys. I put it in here only because it inspired such a long-running franchise and because I figure that if I'm scared of it, it must be pretty scary. The newest entry, Seed of Chucky, opens November 12. I will not be going to see it.

9. Friday the 13th (1980)

I've never seen this movie, either. Not out of fear, but just because it's never been on TV and I haven't gone out to buy it or rent it. Most of these movies I've seen on USA or The Sci-Fi Channel late at night, but the original Friday the 13th isn't a popular selection, for some reason. I include it because it is part of the canon of scary movies. I mean, could you make a list of Great American Novels and not include The Great Gatsby?

10. The Seven Doors of Death (1981)

I include this last, but certainly not least. It comes to us from Italy, at a time when the Italians were making horror films starring American and Italian actors. This one is English dubbed over ... well, English. Long story short, one of the seven doors to hell lies underneath an old hotel in Louisiana. Let's see: face melted by acid? Check. Eyes gouged out? Check. Flesh-eating spiders? Check! Zombies for no apparent reason? Oh, baby! This movie isn't as "scary" as it is "unbelievably gory." But if you're doing some sort of scary movie marathon, it's a nice way to end the evening. Just don't be eating at the same time.

Honorable Mention: The first half of Jeepers Creepers (2001)

This movie could have been so much more. I had such high hopes! This creepy truck starts trying to run the heroes down, like something out of Duel (which was pretty scary, too). Then, later, they pass a farmhouse where a creepy guy in a long coat is stuffing something down a pipe. And he sees them! Oh no! That was a really creepy scene, but writer/director Victor Salva couldn't decide whether this was a thriller, a serial killer movie, or a monster movie. He decided on "monster movie," and the second half of the film goes all to pot.

Posted by Mark at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I couldn't believe it, either, when I read a recent article from Reason magazine which proclaims that John Ashcroft was once the good guy when it came to civil liberties and John Kerry was the bad guy.

The year was ... sometime in the 1990s, and the U.S. government was attempting to pass a bill which would have required that the government be able to break any private encryption. "Then it was Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) who argued alongside the ACLU in favor of the individual’s right to encrypt messages and export encryption software," writes John Berlau from a dateline somewhere in a parallel universe. Is it really true? John Ashcroft, the man who brought us the USA-PATRIOT Act, the man who sued Oregon because he didn't want them to be able to have assisted suicide, the man who launched a War on Pornography, was once on the side of good? What's next: John Kerry on the side of evil?

Yes! Kerry was in favor of encryption control back in those days, along with John McCain. The two of them pushed for some mechanism whereby the government would have all the keys for all private encryption, or the keys would be put into a third-party "key escrow," obtainable only by court order.

Whoa!

Posted by Mark at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey, this is still here! Just kidding. No, seriously, I haven't written here for a while. Let's begin with the interesting bits.

Intelligent Design

This month's Wired magazine includes a story on how "intelligent design" proponents are still trying to get ID into state curricula. The story -- which is biased, since Wired is pretty science-oriented -- deals with something I never thought of regarding intelligent design. Whereas Darwinism is science, ID is more politics than anything else. ID people do not have a theory to advance; their theory is the negation of another theory. Their tactic is rhetorical, not scientific: they get out in public, appeal to people, exploit misunderstandings about evolution. "The intelligent design movement is using scientific rhetoric to bypass scientific scrutiny. And when science education is decided by charm and stage presence, the Discovery Institute [an ID think-tank] wins," writes Evan Ratliff.

Liberal biases

Next up: a review of a book whose subject has always interested me: high school education. Paula Cohen reviews The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Dianne Ravitch, a book that deals with the ways in which minority groups (that's groups whose ideas are in the minority, not groups composed of people who are in the minority) manipulate textbook authoring to suit their own whims. Ravitch provides some interesting justifications for the problem with textbooks: 1) there are only four parents companies in the world that make textbooks, and 2) whatever standards for textbooks are adopted in California or Texas -- the largest textbook markets -- are usually the de facto standards for the rest of the country. Education has taken a back seat to the form of the teaching of education; facts have been altered or removed lest they be seen as "offensive." Grog smash political correctness!

Stealing the past

University of Georgia historian Peter Charles Hoffer offers up a scandalizing indictment of the state of history scholarship in his new book Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud -- American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin. The standards of history scholarship, says Hoffer, have declined severely, rendering it "okay" for people like Ambrose to plagiarize occasionally. Hopefully, Hoffer's book also discusses the "biography-a-month" phenomenon, in which some historian somewhere writes a biography of a guy who's already had a million biographies written. Remember that book about Benjamin Franklin from last year? What did we learn that we didn't already know? Also, be wary of "popular" historians like Stephen Ambrose, who are merely journalists with a book deal. They are not held up to the rigorous standards of scholarly historians, academics who aren't writing a book merely to sell copies.

That's all from this weekend. Do go see I Heart Huckabees. Do not go see The Grudge.

Posted by Mark at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott sent this to me earlier: a New York Times magazine article by Ron Suskind on George W. Bush and faith [registration required]. Suskind says what I think everyone knows by now: George Bush runs this country based on his particular personal religious beliefs. Here are some excellent snippets from the article:

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," [former Reagan domestic policy advisor Bruce] Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."

---

"I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," [Senator Joe Biden] began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns" -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?"

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'"

---

And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that "you can be certain and be wrong."

---

The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility -- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House.

The article is eleven screens long and it makes the point that George W. Bush operates the presidency as though it were a religion: through "instinct," "gut," and "faith." Faith is the belief in something despite empirical evidence to the contrary, or the absence of empirical evidence. Faith necessarily acts opposite reason, the latter being the use of empirical evidence to make a decision. These definitions are not designed to cast a pejorative light on faith; I believe that anyone -- religious or otherwise -- can agree that faith acts contrary to reason (and note I am not attempting to infuse the word "reason" with other words that have "reason" in them, like "reasonable," as though I were suggesting that reason is reasonable and faith is unreasonable. I am attempting to make positive statements, not normative ones).

Faith requires an unwavering, unquestioning belief in whatever it is you believe in. Since there is no empirical evidence to confirm or deny the existence of God, for example, believers in God must switch to a different epistemology in order to understand Him: faith. The very idea of questioning the truth of something is a tactic of reason, not faith. To question faith -- to subject it to the rigorous interrogation of reason -- will always result in a dead end, since faith and reason live on separate epistemological levels. One cannot be explained with the other.

Being the president -- indeed, being any secular leader -- requires the use of reason to come to conclusions about national policy. Kerry's point about the difference between being certain and being right is well taken. We know that Bush values certainty -- personal certainty -- more than he values being right. He has made many decisions over the last four years which outside observers might think defied reason. Take his policies on the environment, sex education, or stem-cell research. His sex education policy, support for abstinence-only education and only abstinence-only education, defies studies which show that such education is only as effective or less effective than other kinds of sex education which acknowledge that kids have sex and explain to them their options beyond not having it (A WHO study "concluded that abstinence-only programs are less effective than comprehensive classes that include abstinence and safe-sex practices such as contraception and condom use." Source). Bush's stem-cell research policy is founding in the belief that, whatever larger good may come from destroying a human embryo to harvest its stem cells, the destruction of that embryo is an absolute and unjustifiable evil. This belief is religious in nature; Bush feels that an embryo is endowed with a soul and as such it is evil to destroy that embryo, for whatever reason. The president's policies on science are so far removed from science that four thousand scientsts -- included forty-eight Nobel laureates -- signed a petition urging the administration to restore "scientific integrity" to the White House.

The job of the president does not involve personal morality. It involves an understanding of what is good for the nation (and by the way, what is good for the nation is not the same as what is good for the president!). Bush has proven over the course of four years that he operates the nation based on his 1) faith and 2) personal morality. As a president, he has failed in his use of reason because he places more importance on faith. Faith, however, has no place in a job where reason is required. The very unquestioning nature of faith makes it disturbing in a public policy arena, where opponents of the president's policies are demonized and branded disloyal. Faith is personal, and an attack on a decision reached through faith is a personal attack. Public policy is something that can and must be subjected to scrutiny, an impossible task when the policies have been reached through a non-empirical means, meaning that we cannot go back and look at the process and evidence by which the decision was reached. A policy based on faith puts all of its trust in one man -- the president -- to do the right thing. The evidence is "because I said so." That's a very good way to run a church, but it's no way to run a country.

Posted by Mark at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Supreme court will rule on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property (story from FOXNews). While this is not terribly unprecedented in and of itself (the Court has certainly agreed to hear arguments on divisive issues before), what is somewhat unprecedented is the fact that the Court already ruled on this issue in 1980.

The Supreme Court will hear two cases as one: Van Orden v. Perry and ACLU v. McCreary County [Kentucky]. Read the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Van Orden v. Perry and the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in ACLU v. McCreary County.

The 1980 case is Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980). In that case, the Court determined that "[a] Kentucky statute requiring the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments, purchased with private contributions, on the wall of each public school classroom in the State has no secular legislative purpose, and therefore is unconstitutional as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."

The 1980 case was a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice Burger and Justices Stewart, Blackmun, and Scalia dissenting. The majority emphasized that the Court had a three-part test for determining whether or not a state statute is permissible under the Establishment Clause: "First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion ...; finally the statute must not foster 'an excessive government entanglement with religion'" [ellipses in original]. The Court found that Kentucky's statute did not have a secular legislative purpose; that it did advance religion ("The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths"); and it did foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

Justice Rehnquist -- now the Chief Justice -- presented a convincing argument in his dissent:

The fact that the asserted secular purpose may overlap with what some may see as a religious objective does not render it unconstitutional. As this Court stated in McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 445 (1961), in upholding the validity of Sunday closing laws, "the present purpose and effect of most of [these laws] is to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens; the fact that this day is Sunday, a day of particular significance for the dominant Christian sects, does not bar the state from achieving its secular goals."

We close down stores on Sunday because the Bible says we must rest on the Sabbath, and yet that is allowed to be legal. Why not Saturday or Friday? Because this country was not founded by Jews or Muslims. Christians are in charge; therefore, their laws take precedence and, over time, become part of the secular law of the United States.

Then again, the conservative justices are the ones who shot down Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District on the prosaic grounds of standing. If "liberal" justices can be branded as "activist" for inventing new interpretations of the Constitution, then conservative justices can be branded as "inactivist" for not applying the Constitution in cases where it might undermine their own personal values. Our money stills proclaims that the official stance of the United States is to put its trust in God; our Pledge of Allegiance still subordinates the nation to God; even the state motto of Ohio suggests that, without God, nothing is possible. If these conservative justices are so gung ho about interpreting the Constitution to the letter, then why haven't they done what the Constitution says and removed God from the official, government sphere? The answer is that, like "activist" judges, they bring in a variety of extra-Constitutional texts to explain why it's okay to have the Pledge of Allegiance include God or why it's okay to have the Ten Commandments on display. Ususally the text is "culture," "history," "Western civilization," or something like that. In offering these excuses, the conservative justices are no better than "activist" judges at strict interpretation of the Constitution. They also have an agenda, one that is not supported by the Constitution, and as a result, they must resort to extra-Constitutional sources to back them up. "Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said the city sought to reflect the cultural, historical and legal significance of the commandments. Rehnquist noted that justices' own chambers includes a carving of Moses holding the Ten Commandments," says the FOXNews article. Certainly Scalia -- who is a stickler for the letter of the law -- would be opposed to bringing in "history" and "culture" as support for the Ten Commandments. After all, he was opposed to bringing in contemporary extra-Constitutional support for Lawrence v. Texas in the form of current world trends and recent European law. What's the difference? In this case, the agenda. No justice can be entirely objective. Each side has a particular way of thinking that is inherently flawed: each side makes the facts conform to a theory (deductive reasoning) instead of making a theory that conforms to observed facts (inductive reasoning).

Will these statues remain intact? Hopefully not, as Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas are only three members of the nine-member Court. Hopefully the other six can see the error of their (Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas's) ways.

Posted by Mark at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In last night's debate -- which John Kerry won hands-down -- George W. Bush continued repeating the talking point that John Kerry was demoralizing our troops and our allies. Here's a tidbit from the first debate:

First of all, what my opponent wants you to forget is that he voted to authorize the use of force and now says it's the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq if you say, "wrong war, wrong time, wrong place." What message does that send our troops? What message does that send to our allies? What message does that send the Iraqis?

Here's another one:

My opponent says help is on the way, but what kind of message does it say to our troops in harm's way, "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"? Not a message a commander in chief gives, or this is a "great diversion."

And a third time:

My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland? You can't expect to build an alliance when you denigrate the contributions of those who are serving side by side with American troops in Iraq. Plus, he says the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve. So what's the message going to be: "Please join us in Iraq. We're a grand diversion. Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time"? I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently. They're not going to follow somebody who says, "This is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time."

A fourth time:

Yes, I understand what it means to the commander in chief. And if I were to ever say, "This is the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place," the troops would wonder, "How can I follow this guy?" You cannot lead the war on terror if you keep changing positions on the war on terror and say things like, "Well, this is just a grand diversion." It's not a grand diversion. This is an essential that we get it right.

In the first debate, Bush referred to Kerry's "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" statement seven times. In the second debate (yesterday's debate), he referred to that statement six times.

Bush would like to have us believe that Kerry's words will demoralize the American people, American troops, and any allies that we might have. He says that our allies won't follow a person who says this is the "wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time." Bush's statement would be true -- if our allies didn't hold that opinion already. The United Nations, the body which we want to have come into Iraq and help with reconstruction, condemned the war. They already know that it's the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. Kerry is not telling them anything new; their minds have not been changed. As for the troops, I suspect that after being in Iraq for over two years, they're wondering themselves whether or not this is the right war at the right place at the right time. Kerry is not demoralizing the troops; they've been demoralized already! Merely being in Iraq has done that to them. They don't need Kerry to tell them that they shouldn't be there.

Kerry's plan for getting the allies "back to the table" involves admitting that the war was a mistake and asking for the allies' help in cleaning it up. Is the world safer after the invasion of Iraq? I certainly don't remember people being beheaded on Al-Jazeera every week before we went in there. I suspect the invasion of Iraq has done that. Kerry understands that we cannot reconstruct Iraq alone, and so far, we have been engaged in the functional equivalent of going it alone. Certainly Bush can mouth platitudes about our "coalition of the willing," but when most of the cost -- both human and monetary -- is shouldered by the United States, there's no coalition. It's a coalition in name only, called such so as to please the American people and anyone else out there who can be fooled into believing that this was a multilateral effort.

This was a unilateral effort.

Also, let's talk about the phrase "flip-flop." The word means "to change one's mind," but the connotation of the words "flip" and "flop" bring to mind something like wet spaghetti, something that is not rigid. Something that is weak. The phrase "flip flop" does not merely suggest changing one's mind, but it implies weakness and changing one's mind flippantly for political gain. Rigidity has its merits, but so does flexibility. Bush errs on the side of too much rigidity. In the face of new information -- such as Donald Rumsfeld's admission that there were no weapons of mass destrution in Iraq -- Bush continues on the same course, whether he's wrong or not. The point is that he stays the course. Shakespeare talked about this in Troilus and Cressida, his play about love and war. The story is about the Trojan War, and Hector wants to let Helen go back to Greece, since it's costing too many lives fighting a war to keep her there. Troilus wants to keep her, since he thinks they should fight for the ideal of love. Hector says:

[...] Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe-soul, 'mongst many thousand dimes,
Hath been as dear as Helen -- I mean, of ours.
If we have lost so many tenths of ours
To guard a thing not ours -- nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten --
What merit's in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up? (2.2.16-24)

Troilus responds that the value of Helen is in the King's honor, for if the king were to give her back, it would be dishonorable. He then assails Hector for using "reason" to come to the conclusion that they should send Helen back to Greece:

[...] Manhood and honour
Should have hare [timid] hearts, would they but fat their thoughts
With this crammed reason. Reason and respect [deliberation]
Makes livers pale and lustihood deject. (2.2.46-49)

A man who is "manly" doesn't admit that he's wrong; he forges onward, even if he knows he's wrong, all for the sake of "honor." And anyway, who needs "deliberation" when you can fight a problem out? I bet this Iraq War business saw a resurgence in productions of Troilus and Cressida, since that's exactly what the play's about -- a war entered into for the wrong reasons that must now continue for the sake of continuing, lest the Trojans seem "dishonorable" (although we know that they're going to lose, anyway). I see Bush as doing the same thing: sticking to a plan not because it's the correct plan, but because it's the plan he's been on all along, and to deviate from that plan would make him (and America) appear weak.

To change one's mind in the face of new evidence is not "flip-flopping" at all. It is exactly what it sounds like: changing one's mind in the face of new evidence. The new evidence presented was not available when some person made up his mind about something earlier. If making a decision involves weighing all the evidence on hand and coming to a conclusion, then we must include any new evidence that shows up after the decision is made, for it could be that this evidence would have resulted in a reversal of the original opinion. I thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I wasn't for going to war in Iraq, but I thought Saddam was hiding them from inspectors. Now, I'm even less for going to war than I was before after finding out that he never had WMDs; he wasn't hiding them from the inspectors at all. (Most likely, he wouldn't let the inspectors into certain places because he was afraid the inspectors might see the massive human rights violations that were going on.)

But there's something that I will hold Kerry to in absolute terms: last night, he was asked to look into the camera and, in no uncertain terms, pledge that he wouldn't raise taxes for people who make less than $200,000. He did make this pledge, and I'm holding him to it.

The debate last night was great for Kerry; though he and Bush repeated the same talking points from the first debate, Kerry came out looking forceful and confident. Bush looked angry and puny by contrast. I actually think Kerry might win.

Posted by Mark at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It had to happen sooner or later. Rodney Dangerfield, who spent forty years lamenting that no one gave him any respect, died yesterday. He had been in ill health for a while, and I'm frankly amazed he made it as long as he did. He was 82 and the comedy world will miss his can't-get-a-break persona.

Posted by Mark at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

John Kerry did. Definitely. He came off as articulate and well-informed. Bush, on the other hand, was flustered and angry. Kerry kept his cool. I have actually heard some people say that Kerry's cool worked against him because "real people" want to see a human being that gets angry and flustered. I don't know about that: when my leader is involved in delicate negotiations, I don't want him to fly off the handle. But maybe that's just me.

Admittedly, the debate was tilted in favor of Kerry to begin with. If Bush had had his way, the debate would put Kerry on the defensive, forcing him to answer questions about his record and his past. Jim Lehrer, however, correctly chose to put the current president in the hot seat. The debate's stated topic was international policy and homeland security. A senator has very little to do with this; foreign policy is the jurisdiction of the president. As such, the president was on the defensive, forced to justify his actions while Kerry attacked him. Nevertheless, Bush could have done a better job defending himself. He fell into the trap of repeating catchphrases without providing support for those phrases, as though they stood on their own without the need for evidence or explanation. He also indicated several times that Kerry was reducing troop morale by "sending mixed messages." If anything has reduced troop morale, it's being in Iraq in the first place! Kerry doesn't need to tell the troops that going into Iraq was a bad idea; they know it already!

For his part, Kerry succeeded in making a case that he wasn't a flip-flopper and beat it into the minds of viewers that President Bush lied about going into Iraq. He also finally dispelled the fallacy of our "Coalition of the willing," which consisted of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland, and thirty-some other countries that are relatively unimportant. Bush tried to make Kerry out to be some sort of unfeeling monster who didn't care about the contributions of other countries, but in the end, he came off as trying to revive the dead: the "coalition of the willing" trope had been laid to rest. Kerry's major problem was that he talked about a plan for getting out of Iraq but never elaborated on that plan. He spoke in generalities, not specifics.

But he still won. The television debate forum has always been about which candidate looks better. Kerry was assertive, collected, and rational. Bush appeared confused, angry, and illogical. I can't wait for the second debate.

Posted by Mark at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

John Edwards is an alien! Recent evidence uncovered by the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension confirms that John Edwards is from Planet Ten. He and his colleagues attempted to overthrow the rightful rulers of Planet Ten years ago, but failed and were sent to the Eighth Dimension for their crimes. Then, on October 31, 1938, they escaped and posed as scientists working for Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. "John Edwards" was one of the aliases given by these aliens, the evil red Lectroids.

Tell your friends! Tell your family! Urge them not to vote for aliens!

Posted by Mark at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)