For America, 1 + 1 = 6

TIME MAGAZINE columnist Joe Klein is deeply frustrated. And he feels President Obama’s pain. He says America wants stronger airport security, but no pat-downs. So which is it to be, greater security or greater liberty? America is appalled at the big deficit, but recoils at higher taxes. OK, so what’s it going to be, higher taxes or fewer services? I say it’s time to do the math, America. No matter how you slice it, 1 + 1 still equals 2. So which is it to be America, reality or magic?

It’s neck-and-neck!

REMEMBER President George H.W Bush’s glorious second term? No? How about your fond memories of 41st President Michael S. Dukakis? Don’t recall those either? Good, because it never happened. But a year or two out from Election Day, each man was predicted to win big. Now, in a frenzy of poll stories, we’re being told (over and over and over) Mitt Romney is edging out Barack Obama in the 2012 race, an election two years away (and in politics, that's like two centuries from now). Never mind that Mitt’s lead is 1 percentage-point and within the poll’s margin of error. The same poll shows Obama beating Sarah Palin by 8 points. That’s wrong, too. If it really came down to Obama v. Palin (and it won’t), Obama would likely win by 50 points at least. Run Sarah Run. I dare you!

Audacity of Nope, Not Even Close

THE easily impressionable folks at the Huffington Post gushed over impressionist Jay Pharoah’s impersonation of Barack Obama on Letterman last night. They say it was “spot on.” I say it wasn’t even close. Pharoah, an SNL newcomer, got some of the Obama’s mannerisms down, but that’s really about it. (I think Fred Armisen’s Obama is kinda lame, too.) But that’s just me. Like his politics, Obama is in the eye of the beholder. And I suppose if you want Pharoah to be Obama bad enough (and the HuffPo folks really, really do), then he will be. Anyway, here is the clip. You be the judge. Enjoy.

Journalism Lite

FOX NEWS Anchor Babe Megyn Kelly (pictured left) shared some pearls of insight about herself and her noble profession during an interview with GQ magazine. Reading it left me, well, slack-jawed.

Apparently, she was a lawyer before getting into the Fox News media racket (she loved the law before she hated it).

GQ: But you ended up hating the law?
"Well, I spent most of my time loving it, but ultimately, yeah, I hated it. The problem with the law is that it's always there. There wasn't a vacation I took over the nine years I practiced—this was back in the dark ages—when I wasn't having faxes and FedExs literally sent to me on the beach in the Caribbean. I used to go on cruises not because I liked cruises, but because it was the one spot they couldn't get you."

GQ: Why did you want to get into journalism, then?
"I thought the profession had some nobility in it, but it's also one in which you have to get your hands dirty."

GQ: You like the hands-dirty part?
"I didn't want anything that was too highbrow or elite. My dad was a college professor, and he constantly had the Ph.D. students over for these great esoteric discussions. But I wanted to be with the people, not just with the Ph.D.'s."

And "with the people," nothing says serious journalism like a sexy, come-hither look. And without a doubt, Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite are spinning in their graves.

Theater of the absurd

'SIMPSONS' MOCK FOX NEWS: During Sunday’s episode, “The Simpsons” fired another broadside at Fox News. It invented a new motto for the right-wing channel: "Not Racist, But #1 With Racists." Priceless. Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? Watch the clip on Hulu here.

CALLING A SPADE A SPADE: NYU Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen explains how Fox News rigs the news reporting game: "On Fox, the news exists in order to generate controversy. Controversy exists in order to generate resentment. And the resentment is what generates ratings." The trouble is, this model also applies to CNN and MSNBC.

SWINGING REVEREND-LY: The Rev. Cedric Miller, pastor of the 1,100-member Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in New Jersey, banned some members of his flock from using Facebook. It is a “portal to infidelity,” Miller admonished. Later, the good reverend was forced to confess in legal testimony that he and his wife had participated in a three-way sex affair. Miller said the swinging sometimes occurred during Bible study, and sometimes on Sundays after church. Sorta gives new meaning to the phrase “Christian Fellowship.” Read the story here.

GOP: Fools R Us?

THE biggest threat to America is terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. One way to keep this Pandora’s Box closed is to secure fissionable material, the stuff needed to make nukes. And a great way to do that is with the START Treaty – the very one Senate Republicans are blocking for political reasons. Terrifying, isn’t it? This sad state of affairs led New Republic columnist Jonathan Chait to remark, “If you die in a terrorist attack (someday), remember this moment.” I keep hoping that Republicans aren’t actually fools. But each day brings more evidence that they are. That’s terrifying, too.

Doctuh, may I have some wawtuh?

THAT'S how people “tawk” in Lauren LoGiudice’s neighborhood in Queens. “I grew up with people who could be the cast of ‘Jersey Shore,’ ” Miss LoGiudice, 27, told the New York Times in entertaining piece about New Yorkers struggling to overcome their native accents. Later, at Wesleyan University, she became aware she sounded like a member of the Sopranos. “If I had looked like Meadow Soprano,” Miss LoGiudice said, “I wouldn’t have had to worry about my accent.” Um, no, Lauren, you still would. Good luck with the whole de-Snooki-ing thing.

Predator Facebook?

Per the Huffington Post: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, warned that social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Friendster constitute one of "several threats to the Web's universality," arguing that such sites create "closed silos of content" that may threaten the Internet's status as a "single, universal information space." The man has a good point. Read the entire Berners-Lee article here.

Getting punk’d by hype

AMERICA, abetted by news media hysteria, is having a meltdown over scanning and pat-downs at the airport. Most folks are not even remotely as attractive as Jennifer Aniston or that Old Spice commercial dude. A great many can barely squeeze into their seats in coach. But suddenly they are the most worried about being ogled or groped. (I’m thinking of you, John “Don’t Touch My Junk” Tyner.) Never mind that most TSA procedures have been in place for over 6 years. America, you’re getting played. The media is exploiting your chasteness (or whatever it is that’s being repressed) for ratings. Al Qaeda is exploiting your insecurity with its “terror by a thousand cuts” ploy. Fall prey to either, and the terrorists win.

A sad truth?

Atlantic editor/writer Ta-Nehisi Coates made this cogent observation today: “It's worth remembering that the goal of the terrorist is to terrorize, and from that perspective, they've been really successful. The terrorist would like to kill a lot of people, but exposing American strength as thin boasting will do in a pinch.” Have we really become so weak-kneed and malleable? I hope not.

Don't touch my junk. Touch his.

WRITING for the Atlantic, Wendy Kaminer takes apart Charles Krauthamer’s (pictured left) recent op-ed on TSA. She wrote: “Krauthamer is suffused with moral clarity when confronted with intrusive TSA screening procedures. What's his solution to airport security? Racial profiling. The trouble with screening procedures is ‘political correctness.’ The same TSA responsible for the ‘idiocy’ of new screening procedures is apparently smart enough to recognize a terrorist by his appearance; he's not a ‘beltless salesman,’ much less a ‘wizened senior’ (and, I guess, he is not Timothy McVeigh); he is an immediately recognizable ‘Nigerian Nut job.’” In other words, Kaminer writes, “Don't touch our junk. Touch his."

It's come to this

Jack Cafferty, CNN’s reigning curmudgeon and master of hype, reported today that 2 million people will jam the nation’s airports between now and Thanksgiving. And “I’m not one of them,” he adds gleefully.

For the poor saps that must travel, the holidays are “shaping up to be a real nightmare” thanks to TSA procedures (even though TSA has made no radical change in its procedures).

The “backlash is growing,” Cafferty warns ominously. Why even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton objects. Didja know a breast cancer survivor had “to remove her prosthetic breast during a pat-down?” Even a child, a child – partially disrobed, mind you – was groped by a “strange adult” (otherwise known as an innocent TSA worker.) And, god forgive us, “a bladder cancer survivor wound up soaked with urine during his pat-down” (thank you so much for that high-definition imagery, Jack).

O the inhumanity! “It's just disgraceful,” Cafferty laments, grinning.

Yes, yes, YES – Cafferty reports, a CBS polls shows 4 out of 5 Americans support the use of full-body scans. “But here’s my question to you”: Looking forward to airplane travel, full-body scans and pat-downs? (Which is like asking, do you like root canal?) “Tune in to the Situation Room at 5pm to see if Jack reads your answer on air.” We can hardly wait.

This is what so-called news reporting is being reduced to. And to use Cafferty’s words, “It’s just disgraceful.”

Waiting for Denzel

DENZEL WASHINGTON is missing in action. What's become of the brilliance he displayed in A Soldier’s Story? Where is the passion he showcased in Philadelphia? Or the superb portrayal of a complicated colonel in Courage Under Fire? Or the scary rogue cop in Training Day? Or the defiant ex-slave soldier in Glory? In recent years, Denzel has phoned it in for drivel like John Q, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Book of Eli and now, coming to a theater near you, Unstoppable. By now, Denzel is richer than God. So it can’t be the money. So where is our Academy Award winner? Bro, you still Got Game. And there’s still time to come back like The Hurricane we know you still are.

Nope, Na-uh, Not Evah

HILLARY CLINTON – who is way overrated, I think – always struck me as too much the Calculating Politician, a cynical wolverine in sheep's clothing, if you will. It is probably why I’ve regarded her with a certain tepidity, a certain wariness. That ambivalence turned into loathing during the 2008 presidential contest. I thought her behavior – guided by the Clintonian creed of winning at any cost – was appallingly selfish and reckless. Fortunately, Obama cleaned her clock anyway. My passions have since cooled, now reset back to benign tepidity, more or less. Intriguingly, Hillary told Politico she will not run in 2012 – or ever. If she stays true to her word, then perhaps I’ll consider some sort of rapprochement. But Reagan's rule still applies: Trust, but verify.

The Few. The Proud. The Problem?

THERE is an "Old Breed" of Marine officer by which modernity habitually passes. Today, they form the strongest phalanx resisting repeal of "don't ask, don't tell.” Though now laughable, the Old Breed also opposed President Truman’s 1948 order to desegregate. As a result, the Corps was the last to accept blacks into its combat ranks. Today, gay is the new black. Never mind that 60% of Marines have no problem with chucking DADT. Never mind that the first service member wounded in the Iraq War was Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, a gay Marine who sacrificed a leg. Like bad weather, the Old Breed will always be with us. Luckily, it’s not up to these Proud Stubborn Few. It’s up to the law. And as one sensible Marine officer told the Washington Post, “If the law changes, we will comply with the law. You can take that to the bank."

Jetting blue

I HATE holiday flying and grumble about it annually. Princeton Prof & MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris-Perry LOVES it. “I'm surrounded by happy family reunions at baggage claim. It's very sweet,” she tweeted sweetly. Well, it’s comforting to know that some of us can find the silver lining in just about anything. And that is sweet, indeed.

Obama's War. Really?

THE other day, I noticed the Washington Post’s special website section on the war in Afghanistan. It’s labeled: “Obama's War: Combating Extremism in Afghanistan & Pakistan.” George W. Bush started it. Bush thoroughly screwed it up when he decamped us to Iraq. And Bush dropped the mess in Obama’s lap when he bade us adieu and decamped back to Texas. But it is Obama’s War. The mind reels.

Memo to Obama critics

ONCE in a blue moon, I happen upon a perfect pearl of insight. Harvard professor James T. Kloppenberg’s essay in Newsweek is such a gem.

Of President Obama he writes:

The shrill tone of Obama’s critics makes reading [Obama’s] books especially illuminating today.

Obama rejects dogma, embraces uncertainty, and dismisses the fables that often pass for history among partisans on both sides who need heroes and villains, and who resist more-nuanced understandings of the past and the present.

After almost two years as president, Obama has failed to satisfy the left for the same reason that he has antagonized the right. He does not share their self-righteous certainty.

Kloppenberg concludes with this penetrating insight:

In November 2010, President Obama remains the man who wrote Dreams and Audacity, a resolute champion of moderation, experimentation, and deliberative, nondogmatic democracy. It’s just that the distorting mirrors of political commentary in America’s fun house can make it hard to recognize him.

This country has no idea how lucky it is to have this man in the White House. The prism through which most Americans view him, the media freak show, certainly does not help. Obama isn’t the Messiah and never claimed to be. He’s just the adult in our national romper room. Professor’s Kloppenberg’s sagacity is a breath of fresh air.

Doorstops R Us

ONE morning some months ago, I nearly tripped over the bulky Yellow Pages book lying in ambush at my front door. As I was taking the garbage out anyway, I grabbed it up and proceeded to the dumpster apace.

Two of my neighbors arrived there at the same time, each hauling their own Yellow books. We all laughed at the irony. Does anyone still use these things in the Age of Google?

Of course the Yellow Pages Association says, “You bet they do!” Per Atlantic Magazine, the association (representing 400 of their brethren nationwide) reports, “more consumers use the yellow pages – 65 percent! – than any other source when searching for local business information.” "There's still a lot of value and high usage," gushed Amy Healy, the association's vice president of public policy and sustainability.

Uh huh – right.

According to the Atlantic, the Association's research revealed this pattern:

Yellow Pages usage increases significantly when people are experiencing life events such as buying a home, planning a wedding or preparing for retirement, among others. Two major demographic segments, Generation Y and Baby Boomers - which together number almost 160 million consumers, will experience many life events over the next 10 years or so, and many will use the Yellow Pages to help them evaluate their options and make a buying decision.

Continuing, the Atlantic said, “So the yellow pages aren't just for taxis and pizzas, they're really sleepers, lying there patiently, waiting for one of those ‘life events’ -- including, of course, the ultimate ride.”

Yeah, I got your ‘life event’; I got your “life event” right here, buddy.

I mean really. When was the last time you used the yellow pages for, like, anything -- beyond doorstop duty? I can’t remember either. Buying a house? Getting married? So, what, you ditch the Internet and Google for the inefficient, hard-to-use yellow pages? You gotta be freakin’ kiddin’ me. Nobody I know would do such a boneheaded thing.

I normally have a big issue with book burnings. But when it comes to the yellow pages, I’ll make an exception, just this one time. Maybe a big barn burner would convince the Corporate Yellow Suits to move their dead-tree directories fully online where the rest of us now live.

Hey buddy, got a match?

Got Junk?

The news media have discovered that males have “junk.” And they’re determined to beat it (um, the new catchphrase, that is) like a dead horse.

Unless you’ve been out to sea without a radio or wireless connection, you know that airline passenger John Tyner refused a TSA pat-down, warning: "If you touch my junk I'm gonna have you arrested."

Overnight, it became the put-down heard around the world. The media labeled the Californian a folk hero and now cannot stop touching its own journalistic junk. On Google, I counted over a hundred headlines containing some variant of “don’t touch my junk.”

Some actual headline samples:

Total Quality (Junk) Management
Week Ahead: Don't touch my junk!
'Don't touch my junk' flier is tired of fame
"Don't Touch My Junk" Rally Cry Gains Support
Tom Keane: TSA touched my junk
Is 'Don't touch my junk' the new 'Don't tase me, Bro'?
Touch his junk
Congress Should Defend My Junk
Report: Americans vastly overvalue their 'junk'
Anthem for Our Age: Don't Touch My Junk
‎Friday p-Op quiz: 'Junk' Edition
‎"Don't Touch My Junk" Goes Viral: Man Defies TSA‎
Finally: The “don't touch my junk” guy speaks
Don't Touch My Junk T-shirt designs
‎'Don't touch my junk' & other big news
‎Junk legislation: Circumcision might get banned in SF
Touch My "Junk" And I'll Miss My Flight!
T-Shirt: "Do touch my junk."

Google even offered to “Create an email alert for don't touch my junk.” Marvelous.

Men have been referring to their “junk” as “junk” for quite some time. Like our juvenile tendency to rate certain parts of the female anatomy as they parade by, it was kinda just between us guys. And like “cool,” that other overused word popularized by Beavis & Butt-head, the catchphrase “don’t touch my junk” will now get its own entry in the Urban Dictionary. Webster’s won’t be far behind.

And naturally, to make matters worse, the media frames the entire TSA debate as a choice between posing for a nude photograph or being groped by a government worker.

A Los Angeles Times editorial offered the best advice to the freaked out wankers who are obsessed with their junk: Shut up and be scanned. Or don’t fly.

What the public knows

Not much, it turns out. The good folks at the Pew Research Center just published a new survey:

While 75% identify the Republicans as the party regarded as doing best in the midterms, fewer than half (46%) know that Republicans will have a majority only in the House when the new Congress convenes in January. About one-in-seven (14%) say the GOP won both the House and Senate; 8% say they won just the Senate; 5% do not think they will have a majority in either chamber; and 27% do not know.

If you avidly follow the news, you probably know all you ever wanted to know about the midterm elections. The media covered it like the Second Coming.

But most folks have a life, god bless ‘em. In a more perfect world, the citizenry should be far more informed about the political currents that affect them. On the other hand, the bleak picture of the electorate painted by pundits and the media is obviously way off base. America is at the Mall and more worried about missing an episode of Dancing with the Stars than the gyrations in Washington.

And despite the blanket coverage John Boehner has gotten in recent weeks, a whopping 62% have never heard of him, let alone know he’s going to be the next Speaker of the House.

I find that hilarious and strangely comforting.

Shocked & Definitely Not Awed

Andrew Sullivan noted this afternoon that "Ackerman is worried about the firepower Petraeus has unleashed on Afghanistan." And, like we all do, he posted a blurb from Ackerman's piece with the salient particulars. (Spencer Ackerman is a “national security reporter” for Wired.com.)

Long story short: Ackerman is "worried" about the increased use of the M1 Abrams main battle tank (which he derides as "your ultimate in 30-year old precision firepower"). He thinks we’re replicating the “Soviet Union’s failed heavy footprint in Afghanistan” and implies Gen. Petraeus is pursuing a foolhardy strategy. Ackerman gets most of his selective “insights” from a piece written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a superb Washington Post reporter. Per Chandrasekaran, the new armored up tactics may actually be working. But never mind. (Read Ackerman here and Chandrasekaran here, and draw your own conclusions.)

This post isn’t about military tactics in Afghanistan. It’s about Ackerman’s sweeping assertions. They struck me as naïve, uninformed and frankly reckless.

So, who the fuck is Spencer Ackerman?

Ackerman graduated Rutgers a year before the Iraq War began. Claim to fame: Editor of the student paper. He then went to work for The New Republic where he was eventually fired for "insubordination." (To prove his pro-war bona fides, Ackerman said he would "skullfuck" a terrorist's corpse at an editorial meeting if that was required. Impressed?) Long story short: He ended up at Wired Magazine where he contributes to its national security blog, “Danger Room.” The 20-something Ackerman is also into comic books and hardcore punk music, per Wikipedia. But hey, he was one of the blogosphere’s Young Lions, according to the Wall Street Journal. That qualifies him to teach tactics at West Point, right?

In order words, on Afghanistan and military strategy, Ackerman has no bloody idea what he is talking about. He’s playing soldier and rockin’ out to Top Gun’s “Danger Zone.” All of which explains his “shocked & not awed” piece.

Yes, I’m being a tad harsh. I presume Ackerman can read and trust he has used that skill to bone up on national security issues and military history (though the wisdom he might have gleamed from study isn’t apparent in his latest piece or the previous ones).

A word to the wise: With Wikipedia, it is easy to check the “bona fides” of the established journalists you regularly read, particularly the armchair generals claiming expertise on topics like national security. Ackerman is probably not a bad fellow, skull-fucking notwithstanding.

But I’d trust his reporting about as far as this former Marine tank commander could throw him.

A prayerful dilemma

Journalist Christopher Hitchens (author of "God Is Not Great") and funnyman Bill Maher (producer of the film Religulous) are both well known for their strident disapproval of religion.

Yet, Hitch and Maher would be hard pressed to summarize their views more artfully and succinctly than the forebear to both men – journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken (1880–1956).

On religion, the "Sage of Baltimore" wrote:

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."

However illogical religious faith may be, I suspect that even most doubters fall in line with philosopher Albert Camus who said, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.” For believers, Camus’ notion is merely added incentive to keep faith close. And the world is probably better off for it.

Of course, as Hitchens and Maher know, there is no avoiding the often overriding truism perhaps best expressed by playwright George Bernard Shaw: “No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; He is always convinced that it says what he means.”

And therein has always laid humanity’s root dilemma.

1984, London-style

THIS morning, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen weighed in on the pending royal marriage between Prince William and what’s-her-name. (He thinks the royal wedding provides a timely boost to British morale.)

Cohen, a British expatriate who left England some 30 years to live and work in America, opened his piece with this interesting observation:

“LONDON — I left a ramshackle, rumpled and rather gloomy Britain three decades ago and returned recently to the surveillance state. On an average day in London you can expect to be filmed by more than 300 cameras. Eight British cities, including Wigan, have more cameras than Paris. You see them everywhere — and they see you. The omnipresence of Big Brother is scarcely an upper.”

Jeebus. I had no idea surveillance was that thick in the city the Romans called Londinium. It is hard to know whether all of this it is justified (it might be). But if the point of terrorism is to terrorize, haven’t the bad guys won at least a partial victory here?

Just something to chew upon.

An offer I can't refuse

TO PARAPHRASE Michael Corleone in Godfather III, "Every time I try to get out, SHE keeps pullin' me back IN!!"

Yes, noble friends, Sarah Palin has jumped the shark yet again, obliging me to lift my Palin Blackout if only for a moment.

Apparently Palin’s new book is due out soon. The Washington Post, which got its hands on an advance copy, described it this way: “Take a Sarah Palin stump speech, expand it to 272 pages, and you've pretty much summed up America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag."

Swell.

But that’s not why I’m bothering with this post. It’s one precious excerpt from the tome that nearly knocked me out my chair.

It seems, per the Post, Palin hates “talentless wannabes.” I kid you not. To wit:

"Did you ever wonder where the producers of 'American Idol' come up with the seemingly endless supply of people who can't sing but are deluded enough to get up in front of a national television audience and screech out a song anyway? ... These self-esteem-enhanced but talent-deprived performers eventually learn the truth."

Oh the irony. Metaphorically speaking, Sarah Palin just gave us a pitch-perfect description of Sarah Palin, and she is too clueless to realize it. If anyone is spectacularly “deluded” and “talent-deprived,” it’s her. The mind reels.

But like Don Corleone’s weariness of endless fighting, I tire of this endless waste of digital ink. And like Sollozzo, I’m a “businessman”; snarkiness is a big expense. It's enough to make me want to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. Maybe together they can put a cork in Palin’s mouth so I can stop writing about the nonsense that comes out of it.

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UPDATE: A pair of tweets from a couple of hours ago. Just reinforces my arguments. Enjoy.

@SarahPalinUSA - Sarah Palin: The publishing world is LEAKING out-of-context excerpts of my book w/out my permission? Isn't that illegal?

@davidfrum - davidfrum: That last tweet by @SarhPalinUSA sums up in 140 characters why this person should never be allowed any authority over any police force ever.