April 8, 2008 by Alpha.

Today (-ish) Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki issued an ultimatum to Shiite Cleric/Major Opposition Figure Moqtada al-Sadr: Either Sadr disbands his Mahdi Army, or he and his party forfeit the right to stand for election. A moderately spooky press release from a Sadr “spokesman” published in Iran offers the notion that doing so might be unconstitutional.*

I am not a scholar of the Iraqi Constitution, but I think that there might be some merit to such a claim in this instance. If a President unilaterally barring someone from election isn’t illegal it definitely should be.

The principle here is simple. As we should have learned from Vietnam, anti-democratic actions do not often have democratic results. If Sadr and his Members of the Iraqi Parliament are cast out, it will empower them. It will make their claims against the Maliki government more serious, and more legitimate. And it may well drive Sadr under the wing of Iranian clerics whose interests are not those of the Iraqi people.

The right answer here isn’t pretty. The Iraqi government must make a deal with the Sadrists. Only then can they reduce the tension between the parties that is fueling the Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigade, and the drive to find support in Iran’s clerical community.

Sure.

///////////////

*Al-Alam News, to which I linked above, is apparently an Arabic-language news service based in Iran. Bear in mind reading the release that the CIA World Factbook indicates that 3% of Iranians are ethnically Arab, and that 1% of Iranians speak primarily Arabic. Compare that with 51% of Iranians claiming Persian heritage and 58% of Iranians speaking Persian and Persian dialects (24% of Iranians are Azeri and 26% speak Turkic and Turkic dialects). However, Iran is also 98% Muslim, the practice of which requires at bear minimum the memorization of a great deal of Arabic.

My interpretation of all of these damnable facts is that Al-Alam News is likely more popular with more religious or more Arab Iranians. Oh, yeah, and most Iraqis.

Why Iraq? Al-Alam broadcasts one of the few round-the-clock television channels that can be received by most Iraqis without a satellite dish.

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April 8, 2008 by Alpha.

Politics and Calculus. In one place. At the same time. I’m sure I’ve got your attention now!

Go ahead and spool up those thinking machines, kids, because I’m dead serious. Fortunately, all you need recall of your calculus is that “integrals” are just the areas under the curves that they “integrate” and that a “derivative” is just slope. Right?

The key variable in political elections is, depending on who you ask, some variation on the theme of “public opinion.” Measuring the opinions of the public at large proves difficult at best, and at certain times has the eerie tone of the Dark Arts. However, we political scientists have little choice but to posit a public and posit that this public has measurable opinions, lest we become entirely irrelevant. That our methods of measure remain inadequate is actually an excellent selling point for some researchers. I digress.

We have a rich language for pronouncing public opinion. “The public respect Candidate Jones a great deal due to his legislative record,” or “President Smith’s support among moderates has waned in response to his reform plans.” Let “public opinion” equal “P.”

We also speak frequently about the course of public opinion, which we might call “change in public opinion over time.” Still with me? We use this first derivative of P when we say things like “Candidate Davis has the wind at his back,” or almost any time we talk about momentum.

We even have language for the second derivative of public opinion, “the change (over time) in the change (over time) in public opinion.” When was the last time you heard some talking head say that he or she thought that “Candidate Bryant has stopped the bleeding,” or “Candidate Nathan has defused the situation” or similar?

Is public opinion “turning?” My Calculus professor always reminded us that derivatives are most interesting when they look the most boring. Any time a derivative equals zero, that means that the thing it is derived from has flattened–that is, if Candidate Williams has “stemmed the tide” then she may soon “turn things around” and if things go well for her she might even become the “presumptive favorite.” That happens because a tiny shift in a derivative can propagate through the others and into the master curve.

Whew.

In spite of the mess, we do have one generally approved measure of public opinion: elections. Sure, they’re the thing we want to be predicting, but never you mind. The wisdom of the ancients in politics suggests that beyond the second derivative, most people’s brains start trickling out of their ears.

Thus we reach several common perceptions concerning the relationship between pre-election polling and the results themselves. We assume that public opinion is much less elastic than it appears to be, and we also tend to assume that elections, like polls, are inflexible flashes in history (instant obsolescence! Don’t tell Bill Gates!).

I think that we may need a new way to look at voting behavior, and I may elaborate upon it later. Suffice it to say that I wonder if voters do not, in part, take voting as a part of the grand narrative of elections and opinions. Who doesn’t like an underdog? And how many Ohioans voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, knowing that he could not win?

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March 20, 2008 by Alpha.

Dear Senator Clinton,

I write to you with great regard. You have played a tremendous part in this year’s presidential election. You have every right to be proud of your contributions to the public good, and we hope to see great things from you in the future.

You were never my first choice. In fact, I don’t think I know any of your supporters personally. But do not think that this detracted from the pride I felt seeing you run. That sense of pride is gone.

I wonder if you don’t quite understand this, but America does not want you to be President. The Democrats will always have a place for you, but only if you do the right thing here. Let’s consider the possibilities that lie before you:

You might somehow pull out some kind of ugly and underhanded coup in Denver. You might get the nomination. But many Democrats and many Independents would be unable to forgive it, which would make a victory by Senator McCain much more likely.

Or, you might not get the nomination. You might instead, become a pariah.

Senator, I understand what drives you. You want to change the world for the better, right? That’s what this is all supposed to be about, isn’t it? So please, I ask you, leave this race now, with what remains of your dignity and prestige, and let’s make Barack Obama the President of the United States of America.

Respectfully Yours,

Alpha

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February 5, 2008 by Alpha.

Today’s going to be a hell of a day.

Check this out. While it isn’t the most accurate or fair statement, I can certainly appreciate pith in the face of fact-checkery.

A lot of what is being discussed right now is about who will win today, but I want to take a moment to consider what the win conditions are for each candidate.

Hillary Clinton: Clinton needs to shut Obama out in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Deleware AND she needs to keep California, Massachusetts and Missouri close. So long as she can claim to have won where she was supposed to and so long as Obama doesn’t blow her out anywhere other than Illinois or maybe Georgia she won’t lose much stock.

Barack Obama: If Obama can take one of the states in New England AND win two from California, Massachusetts and Missouri he can call it a great day. Note that there’s room for an outcome where nether candidate can declare much of a victory, and for a solution where both candidates can trumpet their successes. I’d bank on the latter, myself.

John McCain: A McCain win looks like a big blowout-and for good reason. While a death blow is unlikely, if McCain can win everywhere other than Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia and Tennessee (and the already-decided West Virginia), he can be very happy with the results.

Mitt Romney: Romney needs a big night. He would need to take Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia OR Tennessee and he would need to overperform (tie?) in California and Missouri. Even then, he can expect to come out of tonight behind in the delegate count–this isn’t about putting McCain away, it’s about staying alive while the social conservatives decide who to back and fending off Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee: He’s got West Virginia, but he’ll need to kick some butts in the South–Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennesee, Oklahoma, Missouri are all states he’s competing in, mostly competing with Mitt Romney. It may be that he’s pulling for second, but if he can knock off Romney it puts a serious shine on his future, if nothing else.

Thoughts?

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February 3, 2008 by Alpha.

Alright, so I made some predictions. I think I did alright, but I made a lot of the same mistakes that most of us in the commentariat made.

I did particularly well on the Democratic side, where it was harder to screw up. I had Obama taking New Hampshire, which seemed sensible at the time. Of course, Clinton’s win there was something of a shocker all round. Someone’s going to write a very good book about it, surely.

The Republican race was more complicated, which provided me with more than ample room to get it totally wrong. I called Iowa for Huckabee, Wyoming and Michigan for Romney, but once again New Hampshire disappointed me. Really, I disappointed myself…

I made a rookie mistake: Never count out the old hand. I underestimated Hillary Clinton, to my own detriment, and I underestimated the tendency of Republican primary voters to rally around the familiar and the tenacity of John McCain. I overestimated the appeal of a social conservative like Huckabee among Neocons and Paleocons.

I am proud to report, however, that I predicted the collapse of the campaign of Rudy Giuliani, though I didn’t think he would manage so graceful an exit, and I was a little surprised at how enthusiastically he fell in with John McCain. I anticipated a more cagey response, in the vein of John Edwards and Bill Richardson.

So we are down to two Democratic candidates and two-and-a-half Republican candidates. It looks fairly likely that the Dems are going to go all the way to the convention, though Edwards didn’t take enough delegates to ensure a brokered convention. The GOP candidates are in a somewhat more vicious fight at the moment, though it looks a lot like the fighting between Obama and Clinton just before Edwards was squeezed out. Huckabee may not have long, barring some drastic shift.

Another round of  equally flawed predictions is forthcoming. I’m also rattling a large number of ideas around inside my head–I feel as though I’m on the verge of synthesizing something interesting. More to follow…

Mahalo!

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August 2, 2007 by Alpha.

We Americans, as a civilized breed, are tremendously proud of our common values.

In the land of values, Freedom is King.

In the United States, Freedom is generally interpreted in one of two ways. It is most frequently expressed as either: a condition lacking external constraint, the so-called “negative freedom” of libertarians and many conservatives; or a “positive freedom,” better described as a position in space, from which a multitude of options descend, which image is preferred by most liberal and progressive thinkers.

The obvious fault of the negative freedom theory is that it overlooks situations in which the unconstrained freedom of one person or group actually constrains the freedom of another. On the other hand, the positive freedom theory occasionally constrains everyone’s freedom to offer toothless protections to nearly nonexistent minorities.

These models are both appealing in their own ways, and find markets in many minds, but I don’t feel that either is satisfactory. It is as though we have theories describing trees and forests, but are saying nothing about how it all ought to relate.

Allow me to sketch a brief synthesis, a “Third Way” to discuss the implications of freedom in America.

Freedom is not a commodity. It cannot be bought, sold, or traded for. Freedom for each individual impacts the freedom of all, and to this end, those who are least free among us demand the greatest efforts to remedy that imbalance. There will come occasions where a government must balance the negative freedom of the many against the positive freedom of the few, and vice versa.

The greatest goal of the pursuit of freedom, however, must be the pursuit of options. We need real options, without barriers. We need options that you don’t need a lawyer to understand. We need to bring freedom to people, rather than obfuscating it, because a freedom I can see but cannot achieve is not mine.

A single mother making $1500 a month must be able to choose to change her life. Students in our public schools must have access to the programs that they want, from music to art to metal shop to computing.

Every American must be able to be who they want to, today and tomorrow.
That’s freedom.

What does freedom mean to you? Tell us in the comments!

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July 29, 2007 by Alpha.

The most recently surfaced critique of Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign is that he isn’t sticking to a message. He’s shown that he’s pretty willing to contradict himself depending on the crowd he’s with, not unlike the charges leveled against President Bush in his campaigns. Unfortunately for the former Governor of Massechusetts, attendees of Romney events aren’t screened as strictly as those attending Bush events. The gravest danger, Team Bush must have recognized, is a combination of video cameras and tough questions, which can add up to explosive moments, like then-Senator George Allen’s infamous “Macaca Moment.”

The “bad” moment in this sequence was what may be cordially described as a telling gaff at a campaign stop in South Carolina. Romney was shouldering up to some of his (tremendously impolitic) supporters. A sign gets shoved in his hand, and of course there’s a camera around. Here are the photos (via):
Now, I won’t go into my particular problems with the sign (though they be legion). I actually feel that the thing has a sort of folksy, down-home feel to it, that should really appeal to that coveted angry, racist, nationalist, chauvinist demographic. Their so-called “base.”

But then, that’s the problem, isn’t it. Whether he meant to be or not, there’s simply no way around the fact that he is materially supporting an ideology that is poisonous to the harmony of our republic.

And whether or not he had any idea what he was doing when he hefted that poster-board, there’s only one sensible solution. It’s a pretty obvious one, I’d think: declare that you had no idea what was on the sign, lifted it simply to be cordial and apologize profusely for hurting anyone’s feelings. This way you neutralize the event without totally alienating conservative Republicans.

Of course, if the Romney campaign had figured out how to deal with this situation properly, I probably wouldn’t be commenting. If the story stops there, it’s no story at all. Instead of eating a bite of humble pie and making an ugly face, Romney did the unthinkable: he moved to position himself to the right of the patriot demographic.

At one of his “Ask Mitt Anything” listening tour events in South Carolina shortly thereafter, Romney jumped on it. With both feet. The question came from a polite but persistent young man named Jarid Kurtz, who writes for the remarkably homey Buckeye State Blog. “I still remember where I was on 9/11,” Kurtz said. “I still don’t understand how you can compare any American to Osama bin Laden.” It’s a leading question, one with a hideously potent trap in the middle of it.

Romney jumped in with both feet: “Uh, nice try…. But I don’t really spend all that much time looking at the signs and the T-shirts and the buttons. I don’t have anything in particular to say about a sign somebody else was holding.” Then he made it worse. “I don’t stand for all the things I get my picture taken next to.”

After some words of encouragement and/or extreme frustration from the audience, Romney continued “You know what? Lighten up slightly. Lighten up.There’s plenty of jokes out there and I’m not responsible for every sign that I see, that I’m with. And just lighten up.”

I’d like to briefly respond to the claim at the center of this poorly executed pivot move. Romney argues that he is not responsible for every button, shirt or sign that happens to be near him. I disagree. Any Presidential Candidate has the responsibility to do the right thing. Or at the very least, appear to do so. Romney should not have been allowed anywhere near that sign, unless it was for the express purpose of asking the sign-bearer to consider a slightly more positive message.

Either Romney wasn’t properly coached for either of these occasions or he simply blew it or both. In any case, this signals a major mistake on the part of the Romney campaign, and not one that appears easy to fix. Sure, you might be able to prevent another gaff of this caliber with some staff changes, but that won’t put the kittens back in the sack. Romney just finished principal shooting on one of the best attack ads I’ve seen in a while.

Some of you playing along at home may wonder whether this event upsets my predictions about the Republican Primary race. I rate this a definite maybe. If this story sticks to Romney, it’ll hurt. With McCain in sharp decline and Giuliani wavering, we may see just the opening that Fred Thompson is looking for. And if Thompson turns out to be an empty suit, that may leave the way clear for Candidate Gingrich, which just might be the silver bullet Republicans need so badly right now.

The only certainty is that the Republican race just got a lot less certain, and I’m not sure anyone will make it out of the swamp without some mud on them.

To see the entirety of the Kurtz, et al. v. Romney exchange in New Hampshire, courtesy YouTube, click here. I warn you, it’s brutal.

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July 4, 2007 by Alpha.

Dear President Bush,

I have tried, I really have, to give you the benefit of the doubt. I started trying when evidence surfaced in 2000 that your aide, Mr. Rove, had run some remarkably offensive push-polls indicating that Senator McCain might have had some scandalous interracial dalliances.

But today, sir, I am truly glad that I never doubted you. I never, not for one delirious moment, doubted that you were exactly the scum-sucking would-be tyrant you have shown yourself to be.

The true shame of what you have done may, if you are very lucky, die with me and my generation. This is unlikely. Your many misdeeds have been so brazen and heinous and cowardly that you are most likely to go down in history as the most shamefully wanting “leader” that this nation has ever had. I sincerely hope that you wear that mantle for many, many years.

Now, just before America’s birthday, you have shamed her again.

You swore to the American people that whoever was responsible for the public release of Valerie Plame’s identity would see hard justice done to them. That you took that disclosure as a serious crime, worthy of severe penalties.

Now that a man has been found guilty in precisely that treason, you find that time in prison, any time in prison at all, is simply too cruel, to inhumane to lay on his head.

Sir, Mr. Libby is guilty. He lied while under oath and he lied to the FBI, obstructing an investigation that would very likely have buried Vice-President Cheney, another whose notoriety will hopefully serve as a lesson to future generations.

What is the pursuit of justice worth, Sir? You once claimed that we would find justice in Iraq. Surely, if the ugly shadow of justice that breathes in Baghdad is worth the lives of a few hundred thousand men women and children, then some real justice in Washington, D.C. must be worth a guilty man at least visiting a prison cell.

But no. Mr. Libby has been isolated, he has been terrorized, and he must now be rewarded for his loyalty. Of course, he can’t be pardoned, because then he could not claim his Fifth Amendment right to refuse self-incrimination.

Sir, I am truly disgusted.

My disgust notwithstanding, I try to be a benevolent man. In that spirit I will offer to you some guidance.

First, you must accept that the deception has failed. You have turned back into a pumpkin, and the wheels have fallen off of your Presidency. I know that you crave respect. What man does not? But you can no longer manufacture or demand that respect. If you want any more respect, you will have to earn it.

I urge you, I ask you, I beg you to tell the people of the world the truth. The real truth. No matter how ugly. Tell us who was responsible for what happened in 2000 and 2004. Tell us who was on that Energy Policy task force back in 2001. Tell us who gave you the forged documents that you used to propel the United States into Iraq. Tell us why. Tell us where the bodies are buried and show us the skeletons in your closet.

Sir, enough lies. Perhaps truth will change your legacy.

You concluded your statement on the occasion of the commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence  thusly: “The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby’s case is an appropriate exercise of this power.”

This gets at the crux of your dysfunction as an American President. You have repeatedly pursued those uses of your power which are “appropriate,” or “justified.” This standard is unacceptably low. You are not just the “Commander Guy.” You are the most powerful man in America, and you are responsible for her health. I know that responsibility has never been your strong suit, but the time has come when you have only two options.

You must either spend the rest of your Presidency taking responsibility for your past actions and working to exemplify the kind of stewardship that this nation so badly needs after six years of your lies and manipulation, or you must simply go down in history as an excellent example of the excesses of power.

The choice is yours, sir.

Alpha

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June 22, 2007 by Alpha.

Every once in a while I tune and watch a bit of Bill O’Reilly’s show. I find it comforting to listen to Papa Bear imparting wisdom and defending the Folks.

When I tuned into his television show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” yesterday here are the first few sentences I got.

I choose not to give money to political causes or candidates because my beat is to watch all these people, not pay their bills. But I see nothing wrong with journalists donating money to people they believe will serve the country well. What is definitely wrong is for the media to beat up those with whom they disagree politically.

Since I don’t have Mr. O’Reilly’s address I can’t be certain whether or not he has contributed to any Federal level campaigns. I’ll take his word for it, this once. Let’s dissect that block of text a bit, shall we?

By way of disclaimer I want it noted that Bill O’Reilly is not a journalist and he should stop telling people he is. He’s a commentator, just like most of us filthy unwashed bloggers.

If you swing your hammer at enough screws you’re bound to pound one in eventually. O’Reilly scores when he reminds the Folks that journalists ought to be looking in every direction and maintaining professional distance from their sources and subjects. But wait! He doesn’t expect all those mortal journos to match the high, high standards he sets for himself! Not every reporter has the intestinal fortitude to be a Bill O’Reilly, after all.

So it doesn’t matter if journalists give money, just so long as they keep their reporting Fair and Balanced. Okay, I can see that. After all, the reporting’s the important thing. And once again, BillO and I agree! Only we agree in exactly opposite directions.

It’s that last bit that really worries me. The big problem, O’Reilly would have us believe, is that all those mean liberal reporters are dragging conservatives through the mud because they disagree with them on abortion, immigration, Iraq or other political issues.

Would that it were that simple. The larger problem facing our democracy today is that too many commentators, like O’Reilly himself, pass themselves off as journalists, then fail to act as critical and independent members of the Fourth Estate. The long-term health of our Republic demands an oppositional media in exactly the same way it demands an oppositional system of justice.

It may well be that as television becomes more and more concerned with entertaining viewers the Internet will develop as a stronger and more rigorous Fourth Estate 2.0. Here’s hoping.

P.S. Not only is BillO wrong, he’s also a hypocrite. Less then ten seconds after the block quote above he refers to “hateful Air America Radio Network” which was “loved” by the print press “before it went bankrupt because of low ratings.” Of course, Air America is solvent again, and is beating O’Reilly in markets all over the country.

P.P.S. My prediction package for the Democrats is coming, I promise.

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June 20, 2007 by Stuck In Spokane.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week folks. I’m having technical trouble getting the blog upgraded and things at my normal job have been fairly hectic. Things should even out towards the end of this week.

-Stuck

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