digamma.net - notes

My fellow Dean supporter and Really Friggin Cold Place dweller NTodd links to a column by John Nichols using CBS’s refusal to air MoveOn’s (excellent) anti-Bush ad during the Superbowl as evidence of the dangers of media consolidation. I think CBS made the wrong decision, especially after two Superbowls ago they introduced us to the revolting “drug money supports terror” series. But I fail to see how any regulatory regime could change the situation.

The Superbowl is the most-watched television program in the United States. And there’s only one Superbowl. Of course someone’s going to have exclusive control of it. This was true before the FCC relaxed the ownership restrictions last year, and it was true before Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

What kind of regulations could one pass to end Viacom’s “monopoly"? I suppose we could force the NFL to sell broadcast rights to two or more networks, but if you think the media are too homogeneous now, putting more football on TV probably won’t make you happy. We could impose restrictions on to whom CBS must and must not sell advertising time, but Superbowl time is still a finite good, and someone who wants it is going to have to go without.

So the real problem is the overwhelming popularity of the Superbowl. Maybe the Big Game constitutes an illegal monopoly. I say we break it up into multiple games. This recommendation has nothing to do with my being an Eagles fan. Nothing at all.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this piece by Jonah Goldberg may turn out to be the single most important thing written about Bush this year. None of the criticisms are new, but the bullet list of Bush’s “accomplishments” is devastating.

And of course he has:

• created a massive department of homeland security;
• signed a campaign-finance bill he pretty much said he thought was unconstitutional (thereby violating his oath to uphold, protect, and defend the constitution);
• signed the farm bill, which was a non-kosher piñata filled with enough pork to bend space and time;
• pushed through a Medicare plan which starts with a price tag of $400 billion but will — according to every expert who studies the issue — go up a gazillion-bajillion dollars over the next decade;
• torched Republican — and American — credibility on trade, in both agriculture and steel;

The list is a lot longer than that. Jonah Goldberg is great when he’s on your side.

I recently received a piece of mail from you inviting me to join your organization, the Club for Growth. You and the Club have long impressed me as effectively advocating of economic conservatism without falling into the trap of partisan politics. This impression was bolstered by the New York Times Magazine article in which you stated flat out, “I don’t really like the Bush people very much.”

In the same article, the author noted, “The club is ‘agnostic’ on social issues, to such an extent that Moore has banned ‘the A word’ – abortion – from its meetings.” This attitude should come as no surprise to anyone aware of your relationship to the Cato Institute, a think tank well-known for its libertarian views. The mailing address you used to contact me was the one I gave Reason magazine when I subscribed.

I was shocked, therefore, to learn that the Club for Growth sponsored this advertisement:

The Club for Growth Political Action Committee said the 30-second spot against the former Vermont governor will begin running in Des Moines today — two weeks before the Iowa Democratic caucuses.
In the ad, a farmer says he thinks that “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading …” before the farmer’s wife then finishes the sentence: “… Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”

Why was Howard Dean being singled out for this litany of insults? After all, as governor of Vermont, Dean balanced the state’s budget. More importantly, he was unafraid to alienate leftist groups by cutting spending on their pet programs. It would appear to me that of the Democratic candidates, Dean might be one of the most palatable to your organization.

The only clues I can find toward answering this question come from this press release:

“Howard Dean…. has admitted he would repeal the Bush tax cuts, which jump-started the economy. For that reason alone, Howard Dean poses a grave threat to the economic well being of all Americans,” said Stephen Moore, President of the Club for Growth.

Dean has indeed announced such a plan. So, however, has every other Democrat running for President. Since you ran this advertisement immediately before the Iowa caucuses, you clearly intended to hurt Dean then rather than in November. Which tax-raising Democratic candidate did you hope to support, and in what way do you feel he or she (Carol Moseley-Braun was still in the race then) would make a superior President to Dean?

Furthermore, if Dean’s proposed tax hikes are the problem, why not address them on the merits, and explain why they would be harmful to the economy? Why would an organization associated with the classical liberalism of the Cato Institute resort to the culture war bait implicit in associating Dean with latte, sushi, Volvos, Hollywood, and the mostly-excellent New York Times? I oppose tax hikes and expansion of government, but I see no harm in the other six things.. Do my personal tastes represent a “left-wing freak show” that is unwelcome in your organization?

In the absence of any other answers, I am forced to draw the following conclusions. Despite the Bush administration’s massive expansion of Medicare entitlements, new tariffs on imported goods every day, and complete abandonment of any restraint on discretionary spending, the Club for Growth has resolved to support them in 2004. The Republican establishment believes Dean poses the greatest threat to Bush of all Democrats due to his fiscal discipline and his ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association. Therefore, the Club for Growth is attempting to prevent Dean from winning the Democratic nomination.

This theory seems preposterous given the Club’s reputation for nonpartisanship, but I see no other explanation. Yet another Washington organization has become a part of a party machine. Had you invited me to join six months ago, Mr. Moore, I would have concurred, but now I respectfully decline.

P.S. I live less than half a mile from Vermont, in New Hampshire. Vermont has exactly two Starbucks locations, and the New York Times does not offer home delivery in most of the state.

This is the weather where I live. “Wind chill values as low as 40 below.”

This is the weather where my girlfriend was born. “Low 62F.”

Somewhere she made a wrong turn. But hey, the Presidential candidates love us.

I am not exaggerating when I say that not one day goes by in which I don’t get a referral from this search.

Writing to Altercation, Charles Pierce admits (you have to scroll down or Ctrl-F for “Name: Charles Pierce") he enjoyed watching the Kucinich guy on C-SPAN’s Dubuque coverage of as much as I did.

• Atrios links to a nightmarish New York Times story about a German woman married to an American who can’t enter the country after a trip home despite advice from an INS official assuring her she would be able to. His commenters seem to think this is all the fault of the “brownshirts” in the Bush administration, but it seems to me that back in the halcyon Clinton days, you could still get seriously screwed by bureaucrats who gave you conflicting information.
• The French law banning religious symbols such as Muslim headscarves and Sikh turbans in public schools may also ban beards. I admit I wear my beard (more of a Van Dyke, really) out of a deep-rooted belief that my pudgy cherubic face looks ridiculous otherwise. The nice thing about this law is that despite everything the US does to piss off the Muslim world, France is managing to take the spotlight away.
• Although I’m hosting it on my webspace, I stole this from Atrios. Please do not put me in the duck pit. Supposedly this actually aired on CNN last night.

  

  
  Brilliant.


• Howard Dean’s insane rant on Monday night is the talk of the country. Every day, I question my support for him more. But I’m sticking with him for three reasons - one, my primary is in six days, after which I can stop holding my nose, sit back, and wait until November to make my next decision; two, I’m not going to renege on my promise to drive some of his supporters around on the day of said primary; three, I don’t see an alternative I like better, and on primary day, your only choices are the least evil and not voting at all.

I’m watching whatever caucus C-SPAN is showing. This is better than any reality TV show. I love the scruffy Kucinich guy who’s running around desperately trying to win supporters.

Today is a great day for kids across the world who dream of playing in the NFL but can’t catch a ball. Their dreams are within reach. All they have to do is sign with the Eagles.

The popular shock site goatse.cx has had its domain revoked by the Christmas Island Internet Administration. If you want to read the gory legal details, there’s a PDF here. Lament with your fellow goatse fans at this protest forum, and if you feel really strongly, sign this petition.

If you hung around any forum in the last four years where trolling and crapflooding were common, at some point you probably clicked a goatse link and saw the horrific image known as hello.jpg. It inspired such parodies as oralse.cx and analse.cx (both of which are safe to click).

The site still exists without the domain name however. If you really need your goatse fix, I’ll give you the URL, but I’m not going to make it a clickable link, because I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s seeing this horror for the first time: http://www.hick.org/goat . DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK if you are repulsed by, well, the repulsive.

Goatse.cx: 2000-2004.

Taking part this Nicholas Kristof column (which I like), Daniel Davies of Crooked Timber makes one point which I will concede:

It’s not fair to portray all opponents of neoliberalism as not caring about the Third World; neither is it fair to portray them all as being ignorant either of conditions in Third World economies of of economic theory.

Absolutely true. But free-traders and free-marketers in general get portrayed that way all the time, and it’s not fair to them either.
Thus, I propose a truce on these terms:

We hereby assume, barring overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that those with whom we disagree about economic issues
1. care about the poor,
2. are aware of and sympathetic to their plight,
3. are aware of economic theory, and
4. have very little in common with the people who ran Germany from 1933 to 1945.

Acceptance of and adherence to these four premises will promote constructive economic debate. Can it be done?

Matthew Yglesias:

One strongly hopes that if he wins, the classic Howard Dean of the nineties will be the one stepping in to the White House rather than the guy who’s trying to get elected today.

Amen.