Send more

If Rhoads isn't at the legal limit, maybe this news will prompt him to send John Kerry more cash.

A first for Rhoads

I have never contributed to a politician before. However, I am so scared to have George W. Bush continue as our president that I sent money to the Kerry campaign. I got this nice letter in response:

Dear Rhoads,

I wanted to write and thank you again for your generous contribution
to my campaign. While I am certain you are asked to give to many
causes, your commitment to my campaign and to the larger political
process is humbling and much appreciated.

Your support remains crucial to my efforts and I trust that I can
count on your continued friendship and counsel.

Once again, thank you for your support.

Warm regards,


John F. Kerry

Paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc.

He wants my counsel! Right on!

And one more thing

Oh - and we have now reproduced almost all of what Virgina Postrel had to say about the "press conference." I am still wondering how a reasonable person - and I consider Bob to be infintely reasonable - would say that was "high marks." What she said was that he did a good job at what he is good at - giving a speech in plain language. She doesn't comment other than that, as far as I can see, and she certainly doesn't say anything about the content, which was pretty weak, in my opinion.

I wish I could remember her...

I wish I could remember Ms. Inman/Postrel.... I am so bad with names.

She also said this:

In the Q&A, Bush was much more expansive, articulate, and comfortable than he's often been in the past.

If whe really believes that, then her credibilty is pretty bad in my eyes. I thought he was very herky-jerky, nervous, and completely evasive during the Q&A as I mentioned earlier. I challenge you to find a question which he actually answered.

Read much?

Here's what Virginia wrote:

"George W. Bush is not the most articulate of men, but he is really good at one kind of speech: laying out in simple language the way he's thought through a policy decision."

Here's how Rhoads characterized what Virginia wrote:

"George Bush uses simple language because otherwise he wouldn't be able to understand what he is saying.

Wow.

Kids, don't listen to Al Franken or this might happen to you, too.

That's High Marks?

That is "High Marks"?

Wow, I think that what she is saying is exactly the truth: George Bush uses simple language because otherwise he wouldn't be able to understand what he is saying.

Praise for Bush

Charleston native and Princeton alum Virginia Postrel gives George W. Bush high marks for his speech last night, including his handling of the Q&A.

UPDATE: I skipped the speech last night, too, but I just read the Q&A transcript. I was generally satisfied with Bush's answers, though I still don't know why he and Cheney want to appear together at the 9/11 hearings. I was disappointed the reporters seemed to ask one similar question about five different times. That was odd.

9/11 Commission Testimony

Hey, Bush and Cheney should testify before the 9/11 Kangaroo Court. Will Jamie Gorelick still be on the committee?

Money to be made

If Rhoads is right and Kerry is going to win in November, there's money to be made. The roughly 53-47 gap between the Bush and Kerry positions has closed to about 52-48 in the Iowa Electronic Markets. If Rhoads is right, the current market is wrong. Sounds like there's some easy money lying on the street. Will Rhoads pick it up?

UPDATE: If Air America goes down soon, Rhoads may be right afterall. Chuckle. But the longer they stay on the air (in the few cities they're actually on the air) the better for Bush.

Blow Out

I think you are right. I think we will see a blow out in November in the presidential election, but our current president will get an even lower percentage of the actual votes as he did last time (which was pretty low).

Politicians

Well, I didn't get to watch the President's press conference live, but I did catch the rerun on CNN last night, and I am amazed at how much of a politician he is. I know that all politicians - Democrats, Republicans, and others alike - will sidestep questions they don't want to answer, but they will usually do it with a little more finesse than this exchange:

Q. Mr. President, Why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 commission? And Mr. President, who will you be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30?

A. We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over. And secondly, because the the 9/11 commission wants to ask us questions. That's why we're meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

Q. Mr. President, I was asking why you're appearing together rather than separately, which was their request.

A. Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them.

Let's see. Hold on for a minute. Oh — I've got some must calls, I'm sorry.

Maybe he really isn't that smart.

This sort of thing can't be good for Democrats

Count one more vote for Bush in 2004 that went to Gore in 2000. I'm not much of a political prognosticator, but we could be heading for a blowout in November. Senators have a poor record of winning presidential elections. The last time a liberal from Massachussets was the Democratic nominee I think he won one state. Was VP George HW Bush that much more popular then than President George W Bush is now? He did bask in the afterglow of Reagan, but still. I can't imagine Kerry doing as poorly as Dukakis did in 1988 but you never know.

Guinness: good and good for you

Good news for Rhoads.

The perfect bureaucrat

That's what Daniel Drezner is calling Richard Clarke, "in the best and worst senses of the word." I think Dresner gets it about right.

Corporations and morality

Professor Bainbridge responds to moral criticism of corporate tax dodges:

1. Corporations are not moral actors.
2. Directors and managers owe duties to shareholders rather than society.
3. Directors and officers are obliged to maximize shareholder wealth within the law.

Stephen Bainbridge teaches corporate law at UCLA Law School. He briefly explains each of these assertions in the linked post.

Who we gonna blame?

Jane Galt offers an interesting perspective on the 9/11 hearings.

The problem in general with commissions is that they find what they are tasked to look for. If you appoint a government commission on fairy rings, they'll do their damndest to dig one up, because after all, fairy rings are the reason we're all assembled in this big, important looking room with the columns and the picture of George Washington. That's the first problem I have with this thing.

The second problem is that we are all seeking some reassurance that we can somehow prevent all this stuff in the future. Everyone is very earnestly asking "What changes do we need to make so that our intelligence doesn't (for example) tell us Iraq has WMD, or not tell us that Al-Qaeda's about to attack us?" Almost no one seems prepared to accept the possibility that the answer is "None. Intelligence just sucks." The energy expended trying to blame this failure on someone--George Tenet, Louis Freeh, Condoleezza Rice, or whoever--goes beyond mere regular partisan bashing. It seems to me to express an underlying conviction that of course someone could have stopped this--it's only a question of who. For the commission, especially, it's an unacceptable answer; they simply cannot turn to a frightened American public and tell them that it's really too bad, but we live in a scary world.

There's more, including a look at self-delusion.

This may explain the recent Bush/Kerry divide

Robert Tagorda quotes from a piece by Ron Brownstein (free registration required) regarding the reaction of some focus groups in Florida to a Democratic ad criticizing Bush regarding 9/11. I believe the guy says the people were so angry they almost turned the tables over.

That sort of thing may explain the gap between Bush and Kerry in the Iowa Electronic Markets 2004 Presidential Vote Share prices.

Agents weren't on high alert afterall

This Seattle Times article corrects some errors in Dick Clarke's memoir regarding the apprehension of a guy planning to bomb the LA International Airport back in December of 1999.

FBI and fighting terrorism

Here's the line from the memo regarding the FBI and bin Laden:

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related.

I don't know how many agents are involved in a "full field investigation," nor how many such investigations the FBI conducts (hundreds, thousands?) on a regular basis.

Rhoads does raise an interesting question with his hypothetical Bush/Rice dialogue. The question of what strategy the US should use to fight a war on terror is a legitimate question. It's even legitimate to ask if we should even consider it a war (though it's clear the other side does). I think the Clarke position was and is that we should treat terrorism as crime and take the usual measures to prevent crimes and pursue criminals. The Bush position is that terrorism shouldn't be fought in this one-off manner and that to stop terrorism you need to prevent rogue states from supporting and harboring terrorists. I'm not particularly comfortable with either option, but that's the nature of tough problems. Despite our best efforts, some problems don't have solutions.

Oh - and congrats to Lefty

And I also agree with Bob (!!) that the Masters was one of the best in recent memory. To watch the entire field yesterday go from double bogies to strings of birdies was awesome!

Good job, Lefty. Go for the major sweep, now!

It will be awesome to see him swinging from the other side of the ball at Augusta 30 years from now.