Tortured mindsets

Is waterboarding torture? Herman Cain: "I don't see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique." Rick Perry: "This is war. That's what happens in war. And I am for using the techniques." Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and, yes, even Mitt Romney also nodded their approval. The Spanish Inquisitors of old, the Gestapo, the Khmer Rouge, and the Apartheid-era South African Police would lustily applaud these Republicans -- just like the debate audience did. However, Sen. John McCain, who experienced torture firsthand as a POW in North Vietnam, begged to differ: "Waterboarding is torture." Period. "Very disappointed by statements at SC (South Carolina) GOP (Republican) debate supporting waterboarding," McCain tweeted. I'm glad he spoke out. Somebody on the GOP team needed to. Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Blithely casting off morality, as these candidates have evidently done, is the first step. None of these people belong in the White House.

Welcome to Hell, JoePa

You know your reputation is in tatters when you're even dissed in a movie review that has literally nothing to do with you. Such is the nature of damnation for ex-Penn State coach Joe Paterno. Writing in Time, critic Richard Corliss trashed the new film Immortals (from the producers of 300), starring Mickey Rourke in the role of Hyperion, a virtueless god-man. Corliss's verdict: the movie is "great-looking but brain-dead." He writes, "For all its lustrous crimson escapism, Immortals offers a few fortuitous contemporary metaphors. ... And when one of Hyperion’s misdeeds cues the line, 'How can you stomach bearing witness to such atrocity?', an image of Joe Paterno, the graven, craven Penn State coach, may rise unbidden and unavoidable. A leader of young men who allowed a colleague to defile and virtually devour young boys: this tale of majestic horror could be a dark chapter from the apocrypha of classical mythology." It may not be fair, but, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, Paterno is learning that when the gods wish to punish you, they tend to answer your prayers.

What you missed

The main news from Saturday's GOP debate (which focused on foreign policy) is that Bachmann, Cain and Perry are totally down with torture, US law and the Geneva Convention be damned. Beyond that, Kevim Drum succinctly wraps up what you missed: "Herman Cain almost charmingly demonstrated that he simply knows nothing about the outside world, and Rick Perry beat expectations by not imploding spectacularly again. All of the candidates insisted that they'd take a completely different approach to Iran than Barack Obama, but then proposed doing almost exactly what Obama is doing. For the most part, though, as Dan Drezner says, the candidates kept the crazy bottled up fairly well. But not always." Impressed yet?

The tragedy of Joe Paterno

Being a son of the West Coast, my knowledge of Joe Paterno and the football cult that cocooned him at Penn State for six decades is scant. I will therefore pass on commenting about his firing in connection with the horrific rape of children allegedly committed by Jerry Sandusky, his one-time coaching assistant. But Joe Posnanski, a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated, knows a great deal about Paterno. For the past several years, he's been writing a biography about the legendary coach. Obviously, Posnanski now has the grim ending for his book. Breaking his silence today, he has written what I think is the definitive take on the firestorm now engulfing Paterno. Posnanski is no apologist. He is appalled at Paterno's failure to stop Sandusky's alleged crimes. But he is also disturbed that Paterno (who has not been charged with any crime) is being unfairly castigated by the media and in the court of public opinion. It's worth a read.

Another inconvenient truth

Mark Salter, the former chief of staff to Sen. John McCain, unloads on PSU: "To protect their investment, officials at Penn State kept to themselves an eyewitness account of a former coach allegedly raping a child on its premises. They didn't report it to the police, leaving him free to do it again and again. This is infinitely more serious than the other [sports] outrages we're heard about lately. But it's of a piece: Kids don't matter, winning matters. Money matters -- and only money. Whether it's breaking up historic conferences and ruining traditional rivalries, to trading jerseys for tattoos (Ohio State), paying a future Heisman Trophy winner's parents (USC), or letting boosters hand out cash to players (SMU, Miami and many other schools) or the unthinkable coverup at Penn State, there is a recurring theme: Values don't matter, NCAA rules don't matter, the law doesn't matter, common decency doesn't matter."

For The Fallen

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
― Laurence Binyon

Pundits who live in glass houses ...

Back in August, talking head James C. Moore ― co-author of the best-seller, “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential" ― was utterly convinced that Rick Perry was unbeatable. In an op-ed for CNN ("Why Rick Perry is headed to the White House") he wrote: "America is beginning the process of electing another Texan to be president. ... Perry's coyote-killer good looks, $2,000 hand-tooled cowboy boots, supernova smile and Armani suits, combined with podium skills to embellish the mythology of Texas, all will create a product Americans will want to believe and buy." As Perry himself put it last night: oops. Talk about getting it exactly wrong. The trouble with the Internet for pundits is that the Internet never forgets. That's probably a good thing. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Slouching towards Idiocracy?

Narrator: "As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest ... now began to favor different traits. [Science] predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? With no natural predators to thin the herd, evolution began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species. The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections."

Those were the opening lines of the movie Idiocracy (2006), a really, really bad comedy set in a preposterously dumbed-down America 500 years from now. This all came to mind as I read the observations of Pete Wehner, a writer for Commentary:

"Has any recent major presidential candidate shown as little mastery of the basics, when it comes to policy matters, as Cain? ... Yet some defenders of Cain actually celebrate his lack of knowledge, portraying it as a virtue, a sign that he’s an outsider, a non-establishment figure, authentic, the appealing anti-politician. ... In the 1980s, one of the Republican Party’s main sources of attraction to younger conservatives like myself was its growing reputation for intellectual seriousness. ... The way such things happen is by rewarding intellectual excellence among those vying for the presidency rather than making excuses for their lack of knowledge."

Indeed. I'm sure conservative high priests like William F. Buckley are spinning in their graves. Heck, I suspect even Ronald Reagan would be shocked. I mean, last night's GOP debate was a stark, shocking display of epistemic closure and platitudinous posturing. Not a single candidate (save the irrelevant Jon Huntsman) even bothered to seriously address the issues put before them by the moderators. The more bromidic a candidate became, the louder the applause. Folks were nearly dancing in the endzone when, out of the blue, Herman Cain slimed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as "Princess Nancy." (He was forced to apologize today.) Rick Perry's epic meltdown of course is the talk of the town today. But it provided the perfect metaphor for this sham.

The scariest part of this rush to dumbitude is that it might not be confined just to the Republican Party fringe (or those very odd people who attend GOP debates). This smacks of a larger cultural problem, one borne of a society seemingly more interested in Kim Kardashian's divorce than the fate of the nation. (And it doesn't help when media coverage devolves into reporting like this: "Has Mitt Romney’s Hair Lost Its Swagger?" asks New York magazine.) Yes, I am surely overstating things. But, at times, it still feels like we're slouching inexorably towards Idiocracy.

What toast looks like

Talk about painful to watch. Stick a fork in candidate Rick Perry. He's done.

G-Man

The New Yorker's David Denby has a terrific review of Clint Eastwood’s "J. Edgar." A snippet: "[The film] is, of all things, a portrait of a soul. The movie is a nuanced account of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a sympathetic monster, a compound of intelligence, repression, and misery—a man whose inner turmoil, tamed and sharpened, irrupts in authoritarian fervor. ... 'J. Edgar' is saved from the usual stiffness of the bio-pic form by the emotionally unsettled nature of its hero ... This Hoover is a tyrant, a liar, and a prig, but he is also, in his impacted way, capable of love." Sounds like a great flick.

Some Wednesday humor

To quote New York magazine's Dan Amira, "We were all thinking it." Yes, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader, does in fact look like a turtle. Heh. (See the Daily Caller's full slideshow.)

The bogus face of L.A. Occupy?

"Parks chief assesses L.A. Occupy damages" was the story headlining the Los Angeles Times homepage as I wrote this. It's a perfectly fine, run-of-the-mill news item. However, the photo (shown at left) that accompanied the piece added an editoral dimension to the reporting. Notice how "LA Occupy" is visually characterized. A lone white dude, complete with a sweater cap and wispy beard, is shown in a classic Lotus pose. He might even be chanting. We all know this guy. He's straight from Central Casting. He's the stereotypical, pot-smoking, uber-liberal hippie who never met a tree he didn't hug, right? And for some reason, he's the designated hitter or representative face of LA's OWS movement ― assuming the Times is consciously or semi-consciously making this allusion. Is that fair? Just asking.

The art of uselessness

I was scanning the headlines at Reuters.com when I spied this gem below the story about Italy's economic meltdown: "Breakingviews: An interactive Italian debt calculator." I thought: Um, you're kiddin' me, right? They weren't. This slick "calculator" lets you "stabilize" Rome's debt/GDP ratio with three sliding (i.e., interactive) bars. You can adjust the interest rate between 3% and 10%, the nominal growth rate between -5% and 5%, and the actual debt/GDP ratio between 80% and 140%. Yeah baby -- are you pumped yet? I mean, who needs Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 when you can play with this? But what, pray tell, do all of these interactive percentages actually mean? I haven't a clue. Nor would the average reader, especially those without a PhD in macro economics. In fact, this is a toy only Professor Paul Krugman could love. So, since 99.999% of us have no idea what GDP even means (let alone interest rate-based debt ratios), what on earth is the point of this widget? That's the question the managing web editor at Reuters should have asked but clearly didn't. Aspiring digital editors take note: You don't want to be that guy. Just ask the poor software dude who had to work god knows how many man-hours creating something that no one is going to use.

Another inconvenient truth

"The game is the game, you know? And one of the rules of the Presidential Primary Game (Press Edition) is that there's more space to be filled than there are sensible things with which to fill it." (Alex Massie, Spectator-UK)

Creepier and creepier

One is a misunderstanding. Two is an unlucky coincidence. Three is a trend. Five is serial stalker-land. And now that five women have accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment in one form or another, that smiling photo of him takes on a whole new meaning. Hopefully, that's it in terms of allegations -- but will anyone be shocked if there are more women in Cain's closet given his obvious pattern of flirting with fire? Given Henry Kissinger's timeless truism that "power is the great aphrodisiac," one wonders about how many consensual liaisons he's gotten away with, the illicit thrill that likely motivated his general behavior toward attractive women. I am of course just speculating and, to be fair, Mr. Cain could be as honest as the day is long. Every allegation to date could be false. But if you believe that, call me: I've got some godforsaken Arizona desert land I want to sell you. A person of integrity would man-up, acknowledge his mistakes and apologize to his victims. Instead, Cain has thus far argued: Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes? Maybe it's just me, but that line of defense from a candidate who (at least in theory) could become president is not exactly comforting. Herman Cain of course is toast. It is simply a matter time before he bows -- or is pushed -- off the stage. The sooner, the better.

A thought for Saturday ...

"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead." (Evelyn Waugh, born on this date in 1903)

What passes for journalism

So there I was, perusing POLITICO's front page, when I spied this news story: "BEN STILLER IS DISAPPOINTED IN OBAMA." Stop the presses. That's right, Mr. Zoolander himself thinks "we haven't seen more bold decisions" from the president that he and most of Hollywood helped to put on the proverbial cross in 2008. Now, upon learning that Mr. Obama is mere flesh and blood, Stiller lamented to CNN’s Piers Morgan that it's "been frustrating to see that we haven't gotten further than, I think we would have hoped, in the last few years.” Never mind the villainous role that the Republicans ― guest-starring as Darth Vader ― have played in this ongoing American drama. To be fair, Stiller acknowledged that being president must be kinda hard. “You know, being president is something I would never in a million years want,” he said. Yes, thank God for that. So why does POLITICO deem it vital that you know what this rich A-Lister thinks about Obama and his body politic? Beats the hell out of me. Oh, POLITICO, you make this critique so easy. Heh.

Square peg, meet round hole

I've often wondered how the nation survived George W. Bush (though the jury is still out on whether we'll survive his legacy). Sure, he and his administration meant well -- but, damn, they screwed things up. Case in point: Condoleezza Rice, Dubya's National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, appeared on David Letterman last night to hawk her new book, No Higher Honor. During the course of banter about 9/11, Rice said, "Well, we had not been attacked on our territory since the War of 1812, when the British burned the White House." Well, she kinda forgot about Pearl Harbor. Oops. Now, Dr. Rice is one seriously bright lady, complete with a PhD. But under the glare of the Letterman klieg lights anybody can get discombobulated. That's forgivable. What's less forgivable is what she did next. After the show, Rice recognized that not mentioning Pearl Harbor may have made her look dumb. So she took to Twitter to reaffirm her history cred: "Don't worry, I didn't forget about Pearl Harbor either! It was a tragic attack on our military base in Hawaii (not yet a state at the time)." Then she tweeted: "The War of 1812 was the last time our homeland and our civilians had been attacked. Check out what I say about it in No Higher Honor!" Talk about splitting hairs. (Hawaii was still US "territory." Plus, American civilians were among those being attacked on Dec 7, 1941. But never mind.) In the scheme of things, this is a minor affair. A simple, good-humored "oops" from Rice was all that was required to rectify the error. Yet, by making a mountain out of a molehill, she perfectly encapsulated the mindset of Team Bush, circa 2001-2008. Rather than saying "we fucked up" and then fixing the problem, they looked for a bigger hammer to smash the square peg into the round hole. Amazing.

Quote of the Day

Salman Rushdie goes all limerick on Kim Kardashian. He tweeted: "The marriage of poor kim #kardashian was krushed like a kar in a krashian." Ha!

The Mark of Cain

American Conservative writer Rod Dreher is rolling his eyes in disbelief:

"If you think about it, it says something bad about America that here we are, facing the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression ... and the top candidate for the Republican nomination a year from election day is a charming businessman with no political experience, who knows nothing about the world (and makes jokes about his own ignorance). Look, I think Herman Cain is probably a really nice guy. It’s very hard to dislike him. But president of the United States? And look, I know too that the “best and the brightest” often screw up horrible. ... Expertise does not guarantee wisdom. But that doesn’t mean the amateurism puts us on the side of the angels, either. You wouldn’t trust an amateur to spay your cat or to give you sound investment advice for your 401(K) — yet there are millions of Republians who think an avuncular amateur like Herman Cain would do a great job as president of the United States, or at least a better job than Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, or anybody else on offer who has actually worked in politics. I’m not thrilled with these choices either, but come on, what is wrong with us?"

Um, what do you mean "us," kemosabe? Heh.

In Congress We Trust?

Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) stood on the floor of the House of Representatives, struck his best John Adams pose, and asked his colleagues, “Is God God? Or is man God? In God do we trust, or in man do we trust?” With the gravity of Cicero (or so he thought), Franks concluded that if there is no trust in the Almighty, then "we should just let anarchy prevail because, after all, we are just worm food. So indeed we have the time to reaffirm that God is God and in God do we trust.” Shortly thereafter, the House voted to reaffirm that “In God We Trust” as the national motto -- again. Apparently, the act of Congress in 1956 that previously affirmed the motto wasn't good enough. Yes, this is our Congress at work. But before you guffaw, just remember who elected these bozos in the first place.

A little weak on bein' right

There's a scene in the John Wayne movie In Harm's Way where Admiral Nimitz (played by Henry Fonda) says sardonically: "Well, we all know the Navy's never wrong. But in this case, it was a little weak on bein' right." Wired's “national security” reporter Spencer Ackerman has confessed that he too was "a little weak on bein' right" about Obama's war in Libya. He now admits that he completely misdiagnosed the conflict and pleaded guilty on all counts without excuses. Ackerman has never impressed me for the reasons I ranted about nearly a year ago (see Shocked & Definitely Not Awed). But credit where credit is due. He deserves kudos for fessing up about his boneheadedness on Libya. In his confessional, Ackerman wrote: "NATO’s war against Moammar Gadhafi ends at midnight, eleven days after Gadhafi’s death. That finality is 180 degrees opposite what Danger Room has been predicting since the war began in March. ... And so, in the spirit of intellectual honesty, I need to concede that I got the Libya war wrong. Several Danger Room pieces under my byline ran this year predicting that Libya was an open-ended mission, lacked a clear plan for victory, and could lead to NATO peacekeepers battling post-Gadhafi insurgents. While reasonable people can disagree about whether the war was in the U.S. interest (or even legal), or whether President Obama portrayed it honestly, the fact is that the war successfully ended after eight months, contrary to consistent predictions on display here. We owe it to you to acknowledge forthrightly that we were wrong, and probably too blinded with fears of Iraq 2.0." It'd be nice if the other armchair admirals would also man up and admit the same. But don't hold your breath waiting.

Maybe the problem is us

POLITICO'S Roger Simon recently interviewed White House chief of staff Bill Daley. When asked about today's body politic, Daley said: “The politics reflects the society. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, politics is so uncivil. Isn’t that terrible, why can’t they get along, gee, I’ve never seen anything like this.’ Well, it should be better, but maybe it’s more reflective of society.” Daley turned to reality TV and the cable news shows to underline his point: “[E]verybody yells at each other, they throw things at each other, they’re obnoxious to each other, they swear at each other. And watch the cable [news] shows. What gets [ratings]? The angry, the nasty, the insulting, the edge thing. So maybe politics is just more reflective of society than we want to admit. We want to think politics should be better. But maybe it is more reflective of us. And that may be what we don’t like to see.”

Never let them see you sweat

Clearly, Herman Cain didn't get the memo. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais of the Associated Press.

Cain Inc.

Jon Chait nails it with this observation: Herman Cain is not running for president. He's executing a business plan. And "it’s an excellent plan. The plan involves Cain raising his profile as a conservative personality, which he can monetize through motivational speaking, book sales, talk shows, and other media. Cain’s selling point is that he’s a black conservative who can capitalize on the sense of white racial victimization that has mushroomed during the Obama era. Accordingly, Cain assures conservatives that they are not racist, as proven by their support for him. Indeed, it is the liberals who are racist, as evidenced by their opposition to Cain. If Cain were campaigning to be president, the [sexual harassment] scandal would hurt him. Since he is instead campaigning to boost his profile, it will help him."