A small point about Georgia

So what did we learn from the first debate? There was some good stuff. We learned that McCain is just as fond of repeating jokes as his running mate. We learned that Obama agrees with McCain on a lot of stuff. McCain really, really doesn't like those earmarks, and Obama was really really against invading Iraq. Oh, and have the same taste in bracelets. Great. But the interesting stuff was in the little details. Like Georgia.

McCain used his reaction to the Russian military operations in Georgia as an instance of his greater strength and experience in foreign policy, or rather, in what has come to be his signature style in this campaign, he used it as an attack on Obama’s strength and experience. Certainly the immediate reactions of the two candidates offered a contrast. McCain immediately denounced Russia as aggressors, whereas Obama called for a cessation of hostilities from both sides. McCain sees this as one point to him.

If you're nostalgic for the cold war, McCain's fist-shaking had a comfortable feel to it. He took an immediate tough stand, and if Russia had out of the blue sent troops in Georgia, a little futile knee-jerk blustering might have been warranted. What actually happened in Georgia wasn’t so simple.

Intense fighting between Georgian troops and South Ossetian separatists broke out on 1 August after two roadside bombs injured five Georgian police officers. Russia moved its troops closer to the border and warned that it would intervene in the event of a military conflict. On 6 August the Georgian military began directing sporadic heavy shelling and sniper fire at Tskhinvali, the breakaway republic’s capital. Georgian President Saakashvili announced a day later that he intended to restore Tbilisi's control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia by force, in spite of the carefully crafted 1992 cease-fire and the presence of peacekeeping troops. Heavy shelling resumed after a brief lull, and a full scale Georgian military offensive against Tskhinvali began the following morning (8 August). Russian troops poured into South Ossetia and Georgia proper, and the rest is history.

The conflict in Georgia has roots extending back into Russian imperial history, and its recent history involves many of the same complex questions of ethnicity and national identity, of the right to self-determination, of the desirability and tenability of multi-ethnic democracy that plagued the former Yugoslavia. It is a messy business. So how should a US President respond in the first instance – before all the facts are clear - when he hears that a small ally deliberately violates a cease-fire and is subjected to exactly the sort of asymmetrical response that it knew to expect from the overwhelmingly superior army of its hostile and ruthless neighbor?

He should tell both sides to stand down, let the dust settle, and work behind the scenes in cooperation with our other allies for a just and durable settlement. Georgia was wrong to send its troops into Tskhinvali. Russia was even more wrong to respond with such overwhelming force into the heard of Georgia itself. Both sides needed to be told to hold their fire; and that is precisely what Obama did.

McCain, on the other hand, went with his gut reaction against his old enemy Russia. No caution or nuance here – those Ruskies are trouble, always have been. McCain’s immediate good guy/bad guy posturing sends a dangerous signal to our allies. It says: Go ahead, be reckless, we’ll still take your side and bail you out. It’s a bad enough message when sent to overreaching investment banks, but when applied to foreign policy it demonstrates a naïve willingness to be manipulated, and only encourages troubled regimes to provoke international incidents with our rivals to provoke US involvement. We have a right to expect better of our allies, and a responsibility to react to international crises with a calm sense of authority.

Perhaps this is why the current US President’s response was more in line with that of Obama than that of McCain, calling for “an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops.” McCain criticizes Obama’s immediate reaction, but the facts were complex and as yet unclear. Obama’s reaction was responsible and nuanced. McCain’s response was naïve, reckless and, certainly for a man claiming such lofty foreign policy credentials, nothing to crow about.

Repetition and Denial

I’m all for the private sector. It does great stuff. Amazon.com, for example. No government program in international bookselling could get paperbacks to my little farmhouse as quickly as those guys do. Amazing.

But relying on the profit motive has its drawbacks. We’ve seen one this week in the little affair of our nation’s (and the world’s, just wait for it) economic meltdown. Having done legal work in the field of derivatives, I can tell you they’re nifty. And they come with pages of “health warnings” attached. But the bankers don’t worry about fine print, and they don’t worry about the long term health of the economy. That’s not their job.

Likewise the media. The job of a journalist is not, as many think, to battle for Truth. Their job is to write and print stories that sell newspapers. That means either fresh, interesting journalism or lurid pandering smut. You don’t build a career or sell a paper by repeating the same stories ad nauseum.

The McCain campaign has understood this well. Under the guidance of Karl Rove’s loyal apprentice Steve Schmidt, the campaign has adopted a strategy of repetition and denial. Thus we are barraged with the same messages on a daily basis: Obama will raise your taxes (not likely unless you make over $250,000), Obama wants to teach your five-year-old how to use condoms (simply not true), Obama used Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines as an advisor on mortgage issues (again, untrue), McCain will clean up the old boys’ network in Washington (?!), Palin said no to that bridge to Russia (or, you know, wherever). The media have challenged the McCain campaign on each of these dubious claims, but the campaign just keeps repeating them. Because they know that the media don’t earn money on old news.

The corollary to producing a snowstorm of favorable, if false, stories is to systematically block information that might dilute the message. So Republicans in Alaska have tried to prevent the bipartisan investigation of Palin’s alleged abuse of power in the “Troopergate” affair from releasing its findings until after November 4. Numerous witnesses in that investigation have refused to testify. McCain has refused to release his medical records. It is an approach to truth and information perfectly in keeping with that of the Bush administration, which has been one of the most secretive (and arguably deceptive) in history. Even the insipid Q&A format agreed on for the Vice Presidential debates is designed, quite openly, to protect Sarah Palin from saying something she shouldn’t. McCain feels that his campaign will profit from the electorate being less informed – that should worry all of us.

There are a few bright lights in all of this for the Obama camp who have, with the recent and regretable exception of a misleading ad about McCain's views on social security, kept the moral high ground. The obstruction of justice in Alaska appears to have failed, and even if Palin is cleared of wrongdoing voters will remember the nervous attempt to obstruct the inquiry. They will wonder what Palin feared would come out about her. Likewise the growing outcry for McCain to release his medical records simply underscores the fears for his health. And preventing the spectacle of a blunt gray-haired Joe Biden beating up on fresh-faced Sarah in the debates may ultimately prove a gift to the Obama campaign.

But the repetition and denial strategy will become acceptable if it is not challenged. Again and again. If we fail to object, if we reward deceit with victory, then we deserve what we get.

So what does it take to be President?

It’s all pretty beguiling, isn’t it? The lipstick controversy, the stunning view of Russia from the Alaska coast, Karl Rove suggesting that there is such a thing as too much lying, it’s all the press can do just to keep up with it. This campaign season has offered us such a bewildering dog-and-pony show that is has become easy to forget what prompted it all.

Apparently it all has something to do with who should become our next President. You’d think in that case that we’d be hearing about why each candidate is qualified and what goals he would aim to achieve while in office. But it’s been slim pickings on that front.

McCain has stressed his long experience in Washington, whereas Obama has stressed his sound judgment and credentials as the bringer of change. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has attacked Obama for not having ever run anything and points to her time as mayor when she had a couple dozen employees under her. As for Obama, he has steadfastly avoided mentioning his Harvard education lest he be called an elitist, and instead gone on the offensive accusing McCain of being unable to type or send an email. It’s all less than edifying.

So before I get drawn into anything so trivial as actually discussing the issues, let’s ask one question: what does it take to be President? What does the guy/gal need to be able to do?

Well, let’s start with what he/she does not need to do. The President does not have to manage his employees and look after the payroll. He does not have to do the accounts. He does not have to type his own memos. We are picking someone who must be able, on a daily basis, to gather information, consider expert advice, balance priorities and then make intelligent, well-informed and considered decisions for the well-being of our country. These candidates are spending millions of dollars campaigning to lead the free world, not to become the manager of the local Denny’s.

We can all agree to disagree on what qualities best serve these ends. Certainly experience helps. So does raw intellect backed by a solid education. Boldness can be an ally to quick decision-making, while subtlety and caution may achieve more consistent and reliable results. But if we pick our next president because he talks more like us, or because he can type, or because he was in the military three decades ago, or because he runs a good smear campaign, we will regret it.

One tough cookie

My six-year-old is one tough cookie. The other day he was looking for his shoes, and I told him that they were downstairs.

"No they aren't."

"They're down there, I just saw them."

"No."

"Go look."

"Oh, okay." He's goes and looks, and says, "See, they're not here."

He is standing two feet away from his bright red pair of Crocs. I point. He frowns.

"Well, they weren't there before, I didn't leave them there. Someone else must have put them there."

Any parent will recognize this as normal six-year-old behavior. The problem is that some of us never outgrow it (I for one must confess to the occasional bout of foul-mouthed rage at the imaginary industrious little gremlin who occasionally sneaks into my toolbox and steals my screwdriver, only to leave on my workbench...). But we deserve better from those who would presume to lead our nation.

I had to think of my son's shoes yesterday when I heard the once dignified Senator McCain defend the lies in his recent campaign ads, insisting "Actually they are not lies,and have you seen some of the ads that are running against me?" His campaign manager has also stood firm, claiming to have proof of everything they have said. Those shoes, he would have us believe, just aren't there.

The McCain campaign has adopted what one might call the tough cookie strategy: be stubborn, keep insisting that what they have said is true, and hope that the press will drop the matter in next news round in favor of something more interesting. But the press must not let this drop. If McCain has proof that Obama actually has supported "comprehensive sex education for kindergartners," let him produce it. If they can explain exactly when and where Obama made the claims about Palin that they allude to in their infamous distortion of a piece on FactCheck.com, let them explain it. And if they can't, the press and the public need to keep pressing the point.

McCain bills himself as a straight talker, and has promised a clean campaign. Now he has been caught lying. He owes us either the proof or an apology.

And preferably something more gracious than the petulant "Oh fine," I finally winkled out of my son.

Letting the sunshine do its work

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote. So what do you do when the light shines on something you’d rather hide? You blow smoke.

Rhetoric necessarily involves emphasizing some facts over others in order to convince an audience. While we may decry this as distorting the truth, it is no easy thing to present the truth evenly in a way that does not distort it on one direction or another. Many would argue it is impossible, that there is no objective truth to distort. But even if there is no uncontestable truth, there are certainly many uncontestable untruths. And far too many of them in recent days have been emanating from the McCain campaign.

Of course both liberal and conservative bloggers have been guilty of spreading lies on the internet, and the media have on several occasions been far too quick to report accusations as fact. Neither candidate could prevent that even if they wanted to. I am relatively certain that McCain does not approve of the repeated use of Obama’s middle name by some conservative bloggers as a ploy to appeal to voters’ Islamophobia. I am equally certain that Obama does not approve of silly photos of Palin in a bikini. But we come to something different when the campaigns themselves lie, actively endorse misstatements, or encourage others to make them.

Let’s be honest, both sides have engaged in some rhetorical stretching of the facts, of drawing conclusions that are not quite supported by the premises. But the scorecard so far is very clear: the McCain camp have been playing fast and loose with the facts more often and more egregiously than Obama.

Luckily we have FactCheck to keep track of these things. Factcheck.org has been brilliant at taking both candidates to task for misstatements and for debunking both the silly rumors and the more understandable misconceptions that have flown around during this election season. It may be impossible to have an arbiter of truth, but they have been the sunlight shining on untruths, which at least clears the air so that we can make informed decisions.

But in a new twist, a recent McCain ad misrepresents the statements of the very people who are there to shed light on misrepresentations. The ad claims that FactCheck denounced Obama’s attacks on Palin as “completely false” and “misleading.” In fact, the statements FactCheck was referring to were not by Obama. FactCheck’s response:

Less Than Honest

With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin.

So how long before we start hearing that FactCheck itself is biased? Conservative bloggers will certainly go after them, as it plays into their general angst about a liberal media conspiracy. And the McCain campaign itself? The fact that they are willing to abuse FactCheck’s neutrality and distort their findings is extremely disturbing. It’s a bit like smuggling arms in a humanitarian aid convoy – although it might bring short term gain to one side, it endangers something civilized and good that is of equal value to both parties.

It is in all our interests, whether liberal or conservative, to support FactCheck’s mission to keep both sides honest. Let’s not blow smoke, and let the sunshine do its work.

If I am a gentleman, and you are a lady, then who's going to put the pig out of the parlor?

Last week we had dogs with liptsick, this week it's pigs.

But apparently what's good for the dog is not good for the pig. McCain has lashed out, suggesting that Obama was making a veiled porcine allusion to Sarah Palin. McCain seems to have forgotten that the "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" line was his own (one of his better ones, actually), used quite recently in reference to Senator Clinton's heath care plan. No one then claimed that McCain was calling Clinton a pig, but then Clinton had never compared herself to a dog and, in any case, probably wears lipstick less often than former beauty queen Palin.

So now the party who fought the Equal Rights Amendment tooth and nail, the party who used to scoff at “political correctness,” the party who have consistently treated feminism like a persistent skin disease are now apparently outraged by some perceived sexism against Sarah Palin. Is anyone else confused?

As a good self-flagellating "new man" who came of age during the rise of the politics of identity in the late 80's/early 90's, I've done my best to spot the sexism and to feel guilty for it. Yes, critics have questioned whether she is a good mother but, quite frankly, if Obama had been parading a baby around amidst the noise and klieg lights at the DNC in a similar ostentatious display of parental adoration, I have the vague suspicion that that too would have provoked comment.

The fact is that Palin has been trading on her motherhood and, in doing so, has invited comment. It was her choice to flaunt being a “hockey mom” as a credential and to make a point of her role as a mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome. She has made her motherhood a part of her political identity in a way that few male politicians would do with fatherhood precisely because she knows she can get political mileage out of being a female candidate. She has every right to do so. But her critics have every right to call her on it.

McCain’s outrage is every bit as silly as the outrage over Clinton’s JFK comment during the primaries, and let’s hope for everyone’s sake he drops it quickly. Distractions such as this, along with the feigned outrage over supposed sexism in the election coverage, should be relegated to the darker corners of the blogosphere along with speculation over Obama’s suspicious middle name.

And as for the implications of lipstick on pigs vs. lipstick on dogs? Can't we talk about something simpler, like the Russian intervention in Georgia, or the feasibility of cellulosic ethanol? If only.

The "Um"

In the run-up to this year’s election, the press and the blogosphere have treated us to thoughtful analyses of such pressing topics as flags in bags, shotgun marriages, hugs for running-mates and lipstick for dogs. So I have no fear of sounding lowbrow if I continue in this venerable tradition of dwelling on non-issues and discuss the “Um.”

Conservative pundits and bloggers have already been having some fun with Obama’s debating style, in particular his habit of saying “um.” Liberal bloggers have taken similar pleasure in McCain’s green screen and rigor mortis smile during his RNC speech. But the “um” matters. It tells us something about Obama. It tells us that he thinks.

Obama is a product of his education, and approaches problems as a lawyer and an intellectual. He takes nothing for granted, and is known by those who have worked with him to be almost pedantic in his scholarly insistence on gathering the advice of experts before coming to a conclusion. The “um” is like that little watch icon on your computer, it tells you that there’s something going on in there. It’s a reflection of his style of thinking and decision-making.

It must be said that “um” is the sort of thing that can get you killed as a fighter pilot. But I cannot help but think that, for all his vaunted experience, McCain the politician might have benefited from the occasional “um.” He has admitted as much in his comments about sometimes taking quick decisions and living with the consequences. Clearly there was not much “um” before he chose corruption-and-scandal-prone Palin as a running mate, although the consequences of that are not yet clear. McCain’s style of decision making is to come quickly to a conclusion and then back it up with unflinching conviction. In that it is similar to George W. Bush’s decision-making, quick and bold, but not always considered. It is um-less.

Obama’s lofty oratory and his halting, considered debating style do not endear him to the new breed of talk-radio conservatives who show consistent contempt for anything intellectual. They will mock the “um” as yet another reminder that Obama is one of those over-educated elite lawyers we are all told we should mistrust, even as they praise Palin’s wise-cracking and McCain’s folksy plain-talking. But they forget that there are many Americans who do not consider intelligence to be a bad thing, many on both left and right who fear the gut reaction more than they fear the perceived elitism of rigorous intellectual analysis. To those of us who would rather place our faltering economy and fragile security in the hands of a cautious thinker rather than a quick-reacting maverick, the “um” reflects a welcome brand of small-c conservatism.

So let them mock the “um”. With the bewildering array of complex issues our country is facing, I find the “um” kind of comforting.

Folks just like you...

McCain's and Palin's RNC acceptance speeches have shed some light on the campaign's election strategy. In the coming weeks, amid a flurry of swiftboating tactics from plausibly deniable third-parties "unconnected" to McCain, we will witness an attempt to put on a good cop/bad cop performance, with McCain cast as the dignified statesman and Palin as the conservative firebrand pit-bull (her term, not mine...). Saber-rattling over abortion and creationism will galvanize some on the religious right, but it won't win the election.

The choice of Palin's rhetoric, however, show another strategy at play. The "hockey-mom" routine, as silly as it seems, is a clear indication that the McCain team are going to paint themselves as "more like you" than Obama and Biden. In the coming weeks the McCain camp will barrage America with the same message over and over again: we aren't smooth-talking lawyers, we aren't fancy Harvard educated elitists, we're folks just like you.

They will get some mileage out of this. Now, this may anger some people, but the fact is that come election time we Americans love nothing better than to be told how wonderful we are. We are a great nation. The average American is painted as outstandingly brave and honest and hardworking and unselfish (How can we ALL be outstanding? What exactly do we stand out from? Cowardly lazy selfish foreigners, presumably...). The more a candidate praises us, the higher his/her popularity soars. Hence we are treated to Sarah Palin talking about the great state of Alaska (So which are the not-great states? Delaware? Hawaii? Rhode Island never seemed that great to me, it's so damned small.) From this near-masturbatory celebration of ourselves it is easy to proceed logically to the conclusion that the best candidate for higher office must look just like this superhuman "average American." Palin is just an ordinary hockey mom - hey I'm a hockey mom too, so yeah, she'd make a great vice-president. Sure, why not?

The absurdity is obvious. if you needed brain surgery, would you be tempted to vet your brain surgeon to be sure he/she was someone "just like you"? Personally I'd hope my brain surgeon was a hell of a lot smarter than I am. Someone whose intellect and judgement I could trust rather than someone who shares my religion or my enthusiasm for ice hockey. Unfortunately in politics a lot of Americans want their candidates to look just like them. The McCain campaign will use Palin in particular to pander to this sort of narcissistic nonsense. Obama is an extraordinary man. He is extremely well-educated, and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. In a sane world this would be to his credit. But no, this will be used against him. Graduating at the top of his class from the best law school in the country means he isn't your average guy. Neither is Joe Biden for that matter. Unless you are pretty extraordinary, they're not just like you. They're smarter. They know more about law and policy than you do, and are probably better able to muster the intellectual resources of those around them to analyze complex problems than you are. And no offense but maybe, just maybe, that's a good thing.

Particularly in the VP debates, the McCain campaign will attempt to portray Obama and Biden as slick overeducated lawyers, as not being folks just like you. How the Obama camp responds to this line of non-reasoning will be crucial in the weeks and months ahead. Does Biden need to suddenly take an interest in bowling? Should Obama confess to having gone to Harvard but plead that he spent most of his time shooting spitballs at Alan Dershowitz and wondering why all these lawyers can't just get by with straight talkin' like the rest of us? Heaven preserve us.

Palin's speech and torture

Palin's speech at the RNC was snarky and at times downright silly, but it was also disturbing. Her snide reference to Obama's strong stance against torture as worrying about whether or not terrorists have been "read their rights" shows her utter contempt for America's most basic principles. The fact that she would snipe at this as if being against torture is funny or foolish shows us just how little she understands the legal and moral foundations of our nation. If she's going to try to get political mileage out of the fact that her running-mate was tortured, she should at least have the decency and common sense not to implicitly condone torture in the same speech.

I would have hoped that the media would focus more on this than on the silliness of the whole "hockey mom" schtick. What we are seeing here is the emergence of her views on the nature of liberal democracy, the suggestion that our constitutional protections, domestic statutes and international treaty obligations can simply be set aside and mocked when it suits our immediate needs or responds to our current fears. Sarah Palin has revealed her contempt for the basic principle of rule of law. While it provides no end of fun to ridicule her feeble jokes about the decor at the Democratic Convention and, even better, her deliciously absurd self-comparison with a viscious breed of dog outlawed in many states for mauling children, the stupidity of these things speaks for itself. Her contempt for the basic principles of our legal system is what should be headline news.