My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, “Europe’s Obama Fatigue,” is online.

Despite George W. Bush’s defiant “you’re with us or you’re against us” public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe.

[...]

It would be ironic, indeed, if the Europeans started longing for the good old days of the Bush administration. But that nostalgia is closer than you might think.

Supporting arguments at the link.

UPDATE: As one might expect, this piece is generating some strong rebuttals.

Daniel Larison argues:

You cannot gauge the importance or unimportance of Europe to the United States on the largely cosmetic, superficial and procedural clashes Washington has had with various European states in the last nine months. Under the previous administration, Europe continued to be “important” to the U.S. even when major EU powers opposed administration policy in very public, dramatic ways. To the extent that Obama is losing ground with Europeans, he had far more goodwill and support to lose; in almost every European country, he continues to rate higher after the drop-off from unrealistic expectations than Bush did at almost any point. Obviously relations were and remained far more strained under the last administration than they have been so far under this one. We notice the minor clashes that have taken place because there was a widely-shared, unreasonable expectation that amity and concord with Europe would prevail under Obama.

[...]

European and especially German interests were flatly ignored by Bush when it came to handling Russia. Promises to Ukraine and Georgia of eventual membership in NATO were given over strenuous German opposition. Were European interests and opinions being heeded then? No. The missile defense ploy prompted Moscow to threaten abandoning its commitments under the European conventional forces treaty and elicited a great deal of bluster from Medvedev about targeting Russian missiles on European soil. Was European security strengthened by any of this? No. What matter then if Bush went through the motions and observed the right formalities when he was getting the major decisions wrong?

Most western European allies were not seriously consulted, nor were their objections given much weight, when the Bush administration decided to push ahead with the missile defense plan. In all of the new commentary claiming that Europe has soured on Obama, this seems not to count at all.

Judah Grunstein adds:

[I]f George W. Bush learned to listen to Europe, and in particular NATO, it was largely after he’d been chastened by the failure of the Iraq war and the 2006 mid-term elections. Up until his final NATO summit, Bush continued to talk loudly about the largely unpopular measures of NATO expansion and missile defense. He listened in the sense that he allowed the alliance — led by France and Germany — to turn him back, but it was out of weakness, not out of strength. There was no movement at all when it came to climate change, which is a major driver of public opinion here.

As for Obama’s handling of Europe, I’d agree with the characterization of his aloofness, especially with regard to the current Afghanistan strategic review. But while my sympathies would normally be with Europe on this sort of thing, I do think that Obama invited the NATO allies last April to assume greater ownership of the Afghanistan war. Given their refusal to do so, I don’t blame him for the freeze-out now. That said, Obama’s brush-off of the U.S.-EU summit is inexcusable and reflects a myopic view of the EU’s potential, especially with the advent of the Lisbon Treaty.

I actually don’t disagree with either Dan or Judah on most of these points and think some of the disagreement comes from the provocative  title the FP folks chose.  My argument is neither that the Europeans have tired of Obama or even that Bush was particularly adept at transatlantic diplomacy.  Rather, it is that Bush cared more about Europe — and particularly the UK and New Europe — than Obama and therefore invested more of himself in the relationship.

It’s true that Obama’s stance on, for example, missile defense and NATO expansion is more popular in some quarters than Bush’s.  Indeed, I prefer his approach on the latter and quibble with him on the former mostly on how the rollout was done vice the policy itself.  But the policy differences are  a reflection of Obama’s prioritizing Russia’s views over that of Europe, especially East and Central Europe.   I think Bush was ultimately wrong in his zeal to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO but it was a policy preference motivated by the stated ideals of the Alliance of “a Europe whole and free.”

Now, here’s something I thought I’d never see:  Andrew Sullivan has nominated Hugh Hewitt for an Yglesias Award for his defense of Sonia Sotomayor.

For those who don’t keep up with such things, “The Yglesias Award is for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe.”

What’s particularly ironic about this is that there’s also an award named after Hewitt:  “The Hewitt Award – named after the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt, is given for the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.”

This is not to be confused, incidentally, with “The Malkin Award – named after blogger, Michelle Malkin – [which] is for shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric. Ann Coulter is ineligible – to give others a chance.”  It’s a counterpart to “The Moore Award – named after film-maker, Michael Moore – [which] is for divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.”

Will this require that the Hewitt Award be renamed?  Will Sullivan nominate himself for an Yglesias Award for nominating Hewitt for one?  Truly, the mind boggles.

Not our standard fare but a hard one to resist:

A man from Oakland County [Michigan] has been arrested and charged in an Internet sex sting.

Daniel Everett, 33, of Clarkston was talking online with a 14-year-old girl who he met in a chat room. The two had graphic sexual conversations and Everett propositioned the teen to meet him for sex. But that teen was actually an undercover agent from the Attorney General’s office.

Everett was arrested Tuesday afternoon in Novi where he and the teen were to meet. He was wearing a T-shirt with the words, “Worlds Greatest Dad” on the front, when he was taken into custody.

Everett has now been charged with one count of child sexually abusive activity, a 20-year felony, and one count of using the Internet to commit child sexually abusive activity, a 20-year felony.

Less amusing and not clear from the report:  Did the Oakland AG’s office hire a 14-year-old and subject her to sexual advances?  Or was this an adult pretending to be a 14-year-old?  In which case, where’s the crime?

Photo by Michigan Attorney General via AP  courtesy USA Today.  Story via Drew Curtis’ FARK.

Good line, purportedly from Jon Stewart:

Obama is not upset about the cartoon that calls him a Muslim extremist. Who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists.

via Steve Garfield.

See “New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover” for background and commentary on the story.

UPDATE:  Amusingly, I see via Memeorandum, the hubbub goes on.  Obama is continuing to beat this dead horse:

Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday that the New Yorker magazine’s satirical cover depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals doesn’t bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim Americans.

“You know, there are wonderful Muslim Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things,” the presidential candidate told CNN’s Larry King. “And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it’s not what America’s all about.”

Obama blamed himself for not being forceful enough in challenging some of the rumors about him, including that he is Muslim. Obama is Christian.

This is bizarre on so many levels.  First, Obama clearly knows that the cover was a satire and one which is helping him.  Second, he seems to be implying — while touting all the fine things Muslims do — that “Muslim” is some sort of slur.

Meanwhile, even those on the Left are defending the New Yorker.  Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and others at The Nation :

[A]s comedian Bill Maher observed, “If you can’t do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you?” I tend to agree.

[...]

It’s interesting how through time, especially in these last years, images seem more powerful, troubling, provocative and threatening than words. Why is that? Hard to fully fathom. Perhaps the speed with which images, unmoored from their original home and context, zip around the 36/7 Internet? Whatever the full range of reasons, it seems to me that one fact is that a caricature is almost by definition provocative, often offensive. It’s a misrepresentation, an exaggeration for effect, a parody.

While I understand why many object to this cartoon–and to images which they believe reinforce stereotypes (and there are many at The Nation who found the New Yorker cartoon offensive), I believe satire–even if it flops or offends –has a place in our culture and politics.

She then has some of the magazine’s cartoonists weigh in. Steve Brodner’s take is especially keen:

So basically we have the Wolf Blitzers pretending not to get this to rev up ratings which rely, largely, on the “outrage of the day.” However, in that process a dialogue is forced, satire is discussed, the truth about Obama is put on the table. And so, even if it’s taking the long way to get there, Barry Blitt’s strong image does what we need it to do: put these issues up for discussion and in a very real way, educate America.

Christopher Hitchens has a withering piece for The Mirror. Some excerpts:

Satire, according to Jonathan Swift, is “a mirror wherein every man will commonly discern every face but his own”.

[...]

Ludicrous as it might seem to have John McCain enlisted as an art critic, and obvious as it should be that the New Yorker would never do anything deliberately to hurt the Democratic nominee, it remains the case that a Newsweek poll has just found 12 per cent of voters believing that Obama is a practicing Muslim and another 12 per cent (possibly the same 12 per cent) convinced that he used a Koran for his swearing-in ceremony at the United States Senate. These are of course exactly the sort of people who do not read the New Yorker, or go in very much for the ironic and the satirical, so that as usual the aesthetic effort is somewhat lost on what ought to be its target audience.

[...]

If reassurance is what was wanted, it would have been nice to hear Barack Obama agreeing with the New Yorker’s people that the cover was (a) a joke and (b) a pro-Obama joke and then adding (c) that he and his wife “got” the said joke. No such luck. A statement of extreme lugubriousness from Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton announced that “most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive – and we agree”. So in other words, the Obama team disagrees strongly with those readers who don’t see it as tasteless and inoffensive, as well as those who interpret it as an attempt to draw the sting from a whispering campaign against Obama. Take that, you broad-minded and humorous rabble! Satire can do no more.

Finally, Salon’s Gary Kamiya makes the unkindest cut of all:

It’s official: The Bush era has made liberals so terrified of right-wing smears it has caused them to completely lose their sense of humor. Much as I hate to repeat one of Rush Limbaugh’s flat, stale and unprofitable applause lines, that’s the only conclusion I can draw after witnessing the left-wing blogosphere’s bizarre reaction to the New Yorker cover. . ..

[...]

I don’t know what lugubrious planet these people are on, but I definitely don’t want any of them writing material for Jon Stewart.

[...]

If you satirically depict Obama as an Islamist terrorist, in this view, you are only reinforcing and giving broader currency to right-wing smears. Since the essence of satire is exaggerating negative stereotypes, this means that satire itself is off limits. Or, at least, all satire except that which the cowering — but oh so semiotically sophisticated — left-wing commentariat deems to be sufficiently broad-brush and polemical to pass its funny test.

If nothing else, this controversy has apparently revived the word “lugubrious.”

The liberal blogs are in a tizzy about the cover of the July 21 New Yorker, an illustration by Barry Blitt which shows the Obamas in terrorist outfits, doing a fist bump with a big portrait of Osama bin Laden over their mantle with an American flag burning in the fireplace:

Given that this is the liberal New Yorker and that the magazine is aimed at liberal urbanites, it’s rather obvious that this is poking fun at conservatives, not the Obamas.  It’s provocative, sure, but how better to generate buzz and sell extra copies at the newstand?  Quick:  What was the last New Yorker cover that generated any discussion at all? No, I don’t remember, either.

That was essentially Kevin Drum’s initial reaction, too.  He quickly changed his mind:

Maybe it’s because this kind of satire just doesn’t work, no matter how well it’s done. But mostly it’s because a few minutes thought convinced me it was gutless. If artist Barry Blitt had some real cojones, he would have drawn the same cover but shown it as a gigantic word bubble coming out of John McCain’s mouth — implying, you see, that this is how McCain wants the world to view Obama. But he didn’t. Because that would have been unfair. And McCain would have complained about it. And for some reason, the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame McCain is somehow seen as worse than the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame Obama.

HuffPo’s  Rachel Sklar is similarly thoughtful:

Presumably the New Yorker readership is sophisticated enough to get the joke, but still: this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it’s going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it’s got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama’s campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who’s tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who’s tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism— well, here’s your image.

As one might expect, some were less nuanced.  Duncan “Atrios” Black takes the cake with, “Shouting ‘n****r’ is ok as long as you mean it ironically.”  John Aravosis gets honorable mention with:

Okay, what do we do about this? I want suggestions. This is what we have to deal with in America, as Democrats. A liberal media that bends over so far backwards to be “fair” that it becomes just as bad as FOX News. A liberal publication like the New Yorker thinks it’s funny to make Mrs. Obama some radical black panther, Barack Obama basically a terrorist (you’ll note that he looks just like Osama bin Laden on the wall), and they’re even burning the American flag in the Oval Office (that’s supposed to be the White House, get it?). They put Osama bin Laden on the wall of the Oval Office. And this is funny? Is the New Yorker so out of touch that they don’t realize that much of America, or at least too much of America, harbors these very concerns about Obama and his wife? I’m sure the New Yorker thinks they’re actually poking holes in the myth by making light of the stereotypes. Yeah, and tell us how this pokes fun at the stereotype? It reinforces it.

Taylor Marsh wonders, “Is the appreciation for political satire dead?”

The only way to combat a myth is to broaden it, hype it, make a satirical target out of it. The cover of The New Yorker does just that, but does it make the further statement? Does it go far enough, instead of simply repeating the smears in another form? Where’s the slap at the smear artists, which is obviously who the artist is mocking? The [Village Voice] Hillary image [featured and discussed in the post] has the same problem. It doesn’t depict the fighter rising from the battle. Is simply repeating wingnut talking points enough or does that provide more fuel for the smears instead of mocking them?

Barack Obama wasted no time in fanning the flames out outrage — and Team McCain joined in:

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

Whether the image is “offensive” is a matter of opinion, I suppose.  Certainly, it’s far less so than any number of editorial cartoons that come out every day.  (Consider the work of Ted Rall, for example.)  But, yeah, it’s probabably “tasteless.” The cover of the New Yorker is simply different than a political cartoon inside a paper.

I do, however, think it will achieve its desired effects.  First and foremost, it’s already generating more buzz than any issue in the magazine’s recent history.  More importantly, though, it will lead to a round of discussion of the “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense on the various talking heads shows.  This, in turn, will force Republican operatives to state, over and over, that they don’t think Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, an America hater, and so forth.  That’s probably the only way this silly meme goes away.

Memeorandum has tons more reactions: QandO, Top of the Ticket, HorsesAss.Org, Pajamas Media, American Power, Ketchup and Caviar, Taylor Marsh, BLACKFIVE, Blue Girl, Red State, Polimom Says, Macsmind, Gateway Pundit, Riehl World View, The Plank, The Page, Roger L. Simon, Althouse, JammieWearingFool, Doug Ross, The Strata-Sphere, The Volokh Conspiracy, Moonbattery, The Daily Dish, Blog of the Moderate Left, AMERICAblog News, Feministe, Wake up America, Pensito Review, The Raw Story, Michelle Obama Watch, Buck Naked Politics, Newshoggers.com, Ben Smith’s Blogs, The Corner, NO QUARTER, Scripting News, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Flopping Aces, TalkLeft, The Confluence, FOX Embeds, Eunomia, The Sundries Shack, Sister Toldjah, TBogg, Pandagon, Macsmind and Viking Pundit

Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman camped out overnight in front of a Washington, DC Apple store in order to be among the first to get one of the new iPhones.  Megan assures us that this is a mere sociological exercise for her: “I feel no desperate urge to get my hands on one of the VERY FIRST 3G IPHONES, but I can’t resist a spectacle.”

My own belated foray into microblogging, mostly to finally see if I could figure out what all the fuss was about, revealed quite a frenzy among those I’m following on Twitter and FriendFeed on the subject.  Many are proclaiming the death of the BlackBerry and extolling the joys of the various applications one can now buy for the iPhone.

As to myself, Meh.  I basically want a smartphone to do three things, in this order:

1. Efficiently check and send e-mail
2. Render Web sites quickly and with as much similarity to a computer browser as possible
3. Perform basic telephone functions.

My BlackBerry Curve does 1 and 3 perfectly well and is pretty lousy at 2.  I gather than the iPhone is only slightly better at 2 and much worse at 1, owing to a non-tactile keyboard.

What am I missing?  And why would someone not reporting on the phenomenon camp out overnight to pay full price for a phone that will almost certainly be much cheaper three months from now?

UPDATE: Late afternoon now and all everybody is Twittering about is how poorly Apple did at setting up the infrastructure for all this.  Apparently, after all the waiting to get the phone, people are now having trouble getting their phones activated so that they can actually, you know, use them.  Ironically, the people who get them, say, Monday may wind up having usable phones at roughly the same time as the overnight campers, minus the aggravation.

CNN features, on the 4th of July no less, a piece entitled “National Mall in monumental disrepair, activists say.”

This gathering place known as America’s “front yard” stretches from the Capitol to the Potomac River and is home to the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials and Washington Monument, but it’s starting to look like “an old rundown, worn-out mall that looks like it was abandoned 30 years ago,” says Judy Feldman of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall.

People are part of the problem. The National Mall has more visitors each year than Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon parks combined, according to the National Park Service. “If you had 25 million people coming through your front yard, it might not look so nice either,” said Bill Line of the park service.

The mall has an annual budget of about $31 million. But its backlogged maintenance needs are estimated at more than eight times that amount — $258 million.

I drive past the Mall twice a day during the week and visit it quite often on foot.  The main aesthetic problems, it seems to me, are the ugly security barriers and the scourge of tour buses.

Whining about the grass being spotty or the proliferation of tents selling souvenirs and foodstuffs, though, strikes me as silly. This being the height of tourist season, there are hordes of people trampling over the grass.   It’s simply not going to look like a golf course. (John Denver set forth the relationship in song a quarter century ago:  “More people, more scars upon the land.”)  Moreover, even if it did, you wouldn’t be able to see it with with all those people. It’s a major tourist destination and people want to eat and buy crap like CIA t-shirts to prove that they visited the nation’s capitol and demonstrate their unique, ironic wit.

One would think it would be relatively easy to lay on additional staff during the peak months to ensure that the trash cans don’t overflow.  Beyond that, though, performing major repairs and preventative maintenance is not only expensive but it generally requires closing popular attractions or, at minimum, rendering them much less enjoyable for months, if not years, on end.  One doesn’t simply call out a repairman, write a check, and have it done between noon and 4 pm next Tuesday.

The Manufactured Outrage of the Day comes to us from Joe Stephens and his page A3 piece for today’s Washington Post, “Obama Got Discount on Home Loan.”

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Why, that’s not right! A millionaire Senator getting a more favorable home loan than some average schmoe? How could that be?!

Actually, that’s rather a question that answers itself, no?   Nate Silver issues an “Irresponsible Journalism Alert” and points out that:

[T]he amount of the loan and the nature of the property are not the only factors that determine a mortgage rate. Another major consideration is the creditworthiness of the borrower. According to current rate quotes from myFICO.com, a borrower with very good credit can expect a mortgage rate about 30 basis points better than someone with pretty good credit, and a borrower with excellent credit can expect about a 50 basis point discount.

How credit worthy was Obama?  Well, aside from being a United States Senator, a steady gig if ever there was one, and having just received a $2.27 book deal, he and his wife combined to make around half a mil a year.  Not Rush Limbaugh money, to be sure, but he was probably a decent credit risk.

Ed Morrissey wants to know, “Can the lender identify (anonymously) any other borrower during the relevant time period that got the same favorable rate and, if so, what was the basis for setting the rate that low for the other borrower(s)?”  Not an unfair question especially, as Ed notes, when “Obama has spent plenty of time castigating credit lenders in this campaign for their capricious practices and bad management.  He has rung the populist bell, saying that ordinary Americans can’t get a break from lenders while the powerful play by different rules.”  But, yes, I’d be willing to bet that other well-heeled folks got these kind of rates.

Obama’s spokesman claims, “Obama received the same rate as would have been available to anyone with his financial profile and with an offer from another institution.”  I’m inclined to believe him.

To the extent this has legs it will, like the Cindy McCain back taxes scandal, be because it draws attention to the fact that the Obamas and McCains make a whole lot more money than regular folks and get treated better because of it.  But who didn’t already know that?

Major caveat:  Larry Johnson promises that “shortly, we will reveal additional details.” Given how famous he is for doing that, I’ll be refreshing that page every few minutes.*

Other responders at memeorandum: The Crypt’s Blogs, TownHall Blog, Redstate, MSNBC, Flopping Aces, michellemalkin.com, puma pac, Right Wing News, The Caucus, The Campaign Spot, Fox News, Confederate Yankee, Salon, Ben Smith’s Blogs, TBogg, Brilliant at Breakfast, Political Machine, Comments from Left Field, TPM Election Central, The Swamp, JammieWearingFool, Macsmind, Bark Bark Woof Woof, The Political Carnival, Whiskey Fire, Washington Monthly, The Campaign Spot, and Jack & Jill Politics

____________

*Yes, this I’m being ironic here.   Like a pony.

Just when it appeared that the Associated Press had come to its senses, they’ve now announced an exorbitant up-front fee for even short quotations of their works, Tim Conneally reports for BetaNews. They’ve created a handy-dandy online form to calculate what we owe them.

Hmm. Well, surely, an organization as large as the AP, which goes around suing people, has lawyers on retainer, if not on staff. Surely, those lawyers have some training in copyright law and are familiar with Fair Use, as outlined in sections 107 through 118 of the Copyright Act (Title 17, U. S. Code). Presumably, then, there is a different fee structure involved for educational and non-profit use, right?

Right!

Hmm. Not much of a discount!

As a content creator, I’m very sympathetic to the AP’s desire to protect its economic interests. But to pretend that there is no right to quote some portion of their articles for the purpose of commentary or education is outrageous and undermines their objectives.

Michelle Malkin and Patrick Frey have a great deal of fun at AP’s expense, noting that work on their sites have been quoted, sometimes extensively, in AP stories. Tongue-in-cheek, Malkin even prepares a bill. They raise a legitimate point, though: Why is the AP’s quoting of someone else’s writing “reporting” whereas a blogger quoting the AP as a jumping off point for commentary “theft of intellectual property”?

Orin Kerr, who’s a lawyer — but decidedly not a copyright lawyer — writes that “fair use is always contextual and case-by-case” and that “copying the statements of a person who is ‘trying to get the word out’ is really different from a fair use perspective from copying the statements of a pundit or reporter.” But news outlets quote bloggers, including me, routinely without getting permission to do so. So far as I know, none of us mind that; most of us welcome it, in fact. But none have ever contacted me for permission to do so.

Kerr’s right that Fair Use is case-by-case and rather murky. But, although I’m not a lawyer, I’m rather sure that there’s no bright line rule that anything over four words is excluded.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, better known as “Kos,” is a specialist in media law who’s making enough money on his blog to justify going to court. He says: Bring it on.

Lots of blogs are calling for boycotts of AP content. Not me. I’m going to keep using it. I will copy and paste as many words as I feel necessary to make my points and that I feel are within bounds of copyright law (and remember, I’ve got a JD and specialized in media law, so I know the rules pretty well). And I will keep doing so if I get an AP takedown notice (which I will make a big public show of ignoring). And then, either the AP — an organization famous for taking its members work without credit — will either back down and shut the hell up, or we’ll have a judge resolve the easiest question of law in the history of copyright jurisprudence.

The AP doesn’t get to negotiate copyright law. But now, perhaps, they’ll threaten someone who can afford to fight back, instead of cowardly going after small bloggers.

I’m at a loss as to why the AP, whose relationship with bloggers is mostly synergistic, has been so ham handed in this instance.

Michael Kinsley hopes that Swift-Boating, a combination of smear and truth that “exploits its own complexity and the reluctance of the media to adjudicate factual disputes” and thus sticks, will not reappear this election season.

The raw material for swift-boating this year is already apparent. There is Obama’s loony pastor, his friendship with a former radical, his dealings with a convicted financial sleaze. McCain’s friendship with a woman lobbyist is an issue the New York Times fumbled, but it could resurface. McCain was one of the Keating Five, tied to a financial and influence scandal from the early ’90s that could be brought down from the attic. And there is his alleged bad temper, a potentially legitimate issue that could be blended with his age in unsavory ways.

To swift-boat or not to swift-boat? What’ll it be? Both candidates have publicly sworn off the practice, and McCain was admirably loud in denouncing the Swift Boat campaign in 2004. Of course, that was when he was still a maverick. I’ve been shocked by how many Democrats, in an informal poll, take the position that whatever it takes to win is justified. They say, first, that the Republicans will do anything to win, and it would be naive to attempt a higher standard. Second, they say, the stakes in this election are so high that an excess of scruples in trying to win it would be morality misplaced. Many Republicans agree at least with this second point. The belief of some Democrats that only scruples are stopping them from swift-boating as effectively as Republicans is almost touching.

If these junior Machiavellis are right, there is no hope for a civilized campaign.

They are and there isn’t. There’s a decent chance both of the campaigns will forswear the practice but zero chance that their surrogates won’t engage in whatever tactics they think give their team the best chance at winning.

Ironically, the normally intellectually honest Kinsley both poisons the well and begs the question in his essay,
dismissing arguments that the smears about John Kerry in 2004 and about Michael Dukakis in 1988 were part and parcel of the Republican campaign strategy as unworthy of discussion. Indeed, this is precisely as underhanded as Swift-Boating itself, forcing the other side to prove and negative and relying on the complexity of a national campaign to obscure the truth.

There’s also a Reverse Swift-Boat at work here as well. While I immediately condemned the early, scurrilous charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against Kerry, they did bring to the table, as Kinsley concedes, many arguments against Kerry which were true and which damaged him. The fact that the group which did this was itself contemptible does not mean that the charges themselves were illegitimate. That charges that Kerry was a war criminal and a coward who connived to get phony medals were outrageous; pointing out that he repeatedly lied about other veterans and his own service was fair game.

Similarly, giving credence to the “Obama is a Muslim” argument and claiming that the Obamas are secret racists who hate America is beyond the pale. It’s perfectly fair, however, to call into question Obama’s judgment for associating with Jeremiah Wright and other questionable characters for so long. And, while most Keating Five attacks on McCain at this stage are likely to be specious, his involvement in the scandal is not an unreasonable topic for exploitation, especially against a candidate running on cleaning up government corruption.

Senator Jim Webb, touted by many as a vice presidential candidate who would help shore up Barack Obama with Southerners and those uncomfortable with his lack of national security experience, has an “affinity” for the Confederacy, Politico’s David Mark reports breathlessly.

He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride. In a June 1990 speech in front of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, posted on his personal website, he lauded the rebels’ “gallantry,” which he said “is still misunderstood by most Americans.”

Webb, a descendant of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s, and seemed to suggest that states were justified in trying to secede.

“Most Southern soldiers viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery,” he said. “Love of the Union was palpably stronger in the South than in the North before the war — just as overt patriotism is today — but it was tempered by a strong belief that state sovereignty existed prior to the Constitution and that it had never been surrendered.”

This line of attack is somewhat ironic, given that Webb is a Senator today partly because his erstwhile opponent, George Allen, was painted as a Confederate sympathizer, which paved the way for the “Macaca” incident to stick. It’s also, as James Fallows — who elsewhere persuaded me that Webb would be a poor VP choice — observes rather silly.

First, this is hardly a secret or news. The dignity of ordinary Confederate troops and their battlefield leaders, as opposed to the evil of the southern slaveholding system, was a major theme in Webb’s widely-noted and generally-praised book Born Fighting, published four years ago.

In addition to that book, the main documentary proof of Webb’s “problem” is a speech at the Confederate war memorial in 1990. That memorial, by the way, is in Arlington National Cemetery — not in Richmond, Charleston, Natchez, etc.

Slavery was the key issue absent which the Civil War wouldn’t have been fought and the resurgence of the Confederate battle flag in the 1960s was mostly about segregationist defiance. It’s easy to understand, therefore, why expressing pro-Confederate sympathies is politically problematic. But Webb’s admiration for the against-all-odds fighting spirit of his ancestors, most of whom fought for reasons having nothing to do with slavery or, frankly, political considerations of any sort, is understandable, too. In a complex world, one can simultaneously admire Robert E. Lee’s character, J.E.B. Stuart’s generalship, and the courage of those who charged up Little Round Top while damning the institution of slavery.

And after all: we’re discussing scenarios in which the first black major party nominee might choose Webb as his running mate. Somehow this would “have the potential” of conveying a pro-Confederate tilt? I don’t think this is the right job for Webb, but his respect for his Confederate ancestors is not the reason why.

Indeed.

AP’s Stephen Ohlemacher explains why Barack Obama, the young upstart, is going to be the Democratic Party nominee for president while Hillary Rodham Clinton, the hands-down favorite, is getting a set of steak knives.

Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, rival Barack Obama planned for the long haul. Clinton hinged her whole campaign on an early knockout blow on Super Tuesday, while Obama’s staff researched congressional districts in states with primaries that were months away. What they found were opportunities to win delegates, even in states they would eventually lose.

Obama’s campaign mastered some of the most arcane rules in politics, and then used them to foil a front-runner who seemed to have every advantage—money, fame and a husband who had essentially run the Democratic Party for eight years as president. “Without a doubt, their understanding of the nominating process was one of the keys to their success,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist not aligned with either candidate. “They understood the nuances of it and approached it at a strategic level that the Clinton campaign did not.”

Careful planning is one reason why Obama is emerging as the nominee as the Democratic Party prepares for its final three primaries, Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. Attributing his success only to soaring speeches and prodigious fundraising ignores a critical part of contest. Obama used the Democrats’ system of awarding delegates to limit his losses in states won by Clinton while maximizing gains in states he carried. Clinton, meanwhile, conserved her resources by essentially conceding states that favored Obama, including many states that held caucuses instead of primaries. In a stark example, Obama’s victory in Kansas wiped out the gains made by Clinton for winning New Jersey, even though New Jersey had three times as many delegates at stake. Obama did it by winning big in Kansas while keeping the vote relatively close in New Jersey.

[...]

The system enables strong second-place candidates to stay competitive and extend the race—as long as they don’t run out of campaign money. “For people who want a campaign to end quickly, proportional allocation is a bad system,” Devine said. “For people who want a system that is fair and reflective of the voters, it’s a much better system.”

[...]

A more subtle change was the distribution of delegates within each state. As part of the proportional system, Democrats award delegates based on statewide vote totals as well as results in individual congressional districts. The delegates, however, are not distributed evenly within a state, like they are in the Republican system. Under Democratic rules, congressional districts with a history of strong support for Democratic candidates are rewarded with more delegates than districts that are more Republican. Some districts packed with Democratic voters can have as many as eight or nine delegates up for grabs, while more Republican districts in the same state have three or four.

The system is designed to benefit candidates who do well among loyal Democratic constituencies, and none is more loyal than black voters. Obama, who would be the first black candidate nominated by a major political party, has been winning 80 percent to 90 percent of the black vote in most primaries, according to exit polls. “Black districts always have a large number of delegates because they are the highest performers for the Democratic Party,” said Elaine Kamarck, a Harvard University professor who is writing a book about the Democratic nominating process. “Once you had a black candidate you knew that he would be winning large numbers of delegates because of this phenomenon,” said Kamarck, who is also a superdelegate supporting Clinton.

In states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, Clinton won the statewide vote but Obama won enough delegates to limit her gains. In states Obama carried, like Georgia and Virginia, he maximized the number of delegates he won. “The Obama campaign was very good at targeting districts in areas where they could do well,” said former DNC Chairman Don Fowler, a Clinton superdelegate from South Carolina. “They were very conscious and aware of these nuances.”

But, Fowler noted, the best strategy in the world would have been useless without the right candidate. “If that same strategy and that same effort had been used with a different candidate, a less charismatic candidate, a less attractive candidate, it wouldn’t have worked,” Fowler said. “The reason they look so good is because Obama was so good.”

It’s supremely ironic, though, that the legacy candidate, with every resource imaginable available to her, didn’t understand the rules while the neophyte mastered them from the outset.

About those steak knives: Tim Shipman, writing for the London Telegraph reports that Obama is offering Clinton a “negotiated surrender” at a level far, far less lucrative than is ordinarily awarded to close second place finishers.

The former First Lady would get the chance to pilot Mr Obama’s reforms of the American healthcare system if she agrees to clear the path to his nomination as Democratic presidential candidate. Senior figures in the Obama camp have told Democrat colleagues that the offer to Mrs Clinton of a cabinet post as health secretary or to steer new legislation through the Senate will be a central element of their peace overtures to the New York senator.

[...]

After today’s primary election in Puerto Rico and Tuesday’s final contests in Montana and South Dakota, the remaining super-delegates will come under huge pressure from fellow party grandees to declare their hands. The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”

Another Democrat who has discussed strategy with friends in the Obama inner circle said that Mr Obama was openly considering asking Mrs Clinton to join his cabinet, alongside two other former presidential rivals: John Edwards, who is seen as a likely attorney general; and Joe Biden, who is a leading contender to become Secretary of State.

Edwards and Biden together won essentially the same number of delegates as my cats, Scamp and Henry. Yet they’re being considered for far more prestigious posts than Clinton, who has taken Obama to the wire. I’m guessing that such an offer would actually serve to stoke her desire to keep fighting to the bitter end.

Her campaign’s feigned outrage over a rather generous settlement yesterday in the dispute over the Florida and Michigan ballots is another indicator of that intention.

To jeers and boos that showcased deep party divisions, Democratic Party officials agreed Saturday to seat delegates from the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries at the party’s convention in August but give them only half a vote each, dealing a setback to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The agreement, reached by the rules committee of the Democratic National Committee behind closed doors and voted on publicly before a raucous audience of supporters of the two candidates, would give Mrs. Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates over Senator Barack Obama. But this fell far short of her hopes of winning the full votes of both delegations and moved the nomination further out of her reach. She now lags behind Mr. Obama by about 176 delegates, according to The New York Times’s tally, in the final weekend of campaigning before the nominating contests end. Mrs. Clinton, who led the voting in the Michigan and Florida contests, which were held in defiance of party rules, picked up 19 delegates more than Mr. Obama in Florida and 5 delegates more than Mr. Obama in Michigan.

The deal prompted one of her chief advisers, Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee himself, to declare that Mrs. Clinton’s fight may not be over, even though Mr. Obama’s advisers say he is only days away from gaining enough delegates to claim the nomination. “Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee,” Mr. Ickes said before the final vote, raising the specter of a fight until that committee meets. His words drew cheers from Clinton supporters, including many who yelled, “Denver! Denver! Denver!” — implying that the fight could go all the way to the convention in that city.

Or beyond.

Spencer Ackerman applauds Megan Carpentier for her rejoinder to Geraldine Ferarro: “People coming up to you and complaining that they can’t complain about black people is them complaining for being looked down upon for being racists!”

It’s a great line except for its being gobsmackingly stupid.

Ferraro was passing on complaints of Clinton supporters frustrated that every attack made on Barack Obama was greeted with cries of “Racism!” That’s not an inherently unreasonable thing to complain about. If one can’t criticize a black candidate without being called a racist, then there’s no way to have a legitimate campaign. That’s highly problematic.

Of course, given that Ferraro and company were whining about how unfair the world is to women candidates and crying “Sexist!” every time Hillary got called on something makes this particular complaint ironic. Sort of a case of the pot calling the kettle black, if one can still use that phrase without being called a racist. But hypocrisy and lack of ironic awareness doesn’t necessarily make the charge untrue.

David Brooks invokes the late Mancur Olsen to explain why egregiously bad legislation like the recent farm and energy bills — pork laden monstrosities that pretty much everyone agrees are bad public policy — easily pass into law.

He then shifts to the presumptive November contest between John McCain and Barack Obama.

Barack Obama talks about taking on the special interests. This farm bill would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. But Obama supported the bill, just as he supported the 2005 energy bill that was a Christmas tree for the oil and gas industries.

Obama’s vote may help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa. Moreover, it raises questions about how exactly he expects to bring about the change that he promises.

If elected, Obama’s main opposition will not come from Republicans. It will come from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Already, the Democratic machine is reborn. Lobbyists are now giving 60 percent of their dollars to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry and the financial sector all give more money to Democrats than Republicans. If Obama is actually going to bring about change, he’s going to have to ruffle these sorts of alliances. If he can’t do it in an easy case like the farm bill, will he ever?

John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.”

McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It’s between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.

In fact, in this issue, McCain may have found a theme to unify his so far scattershot campaign. He has always been an awkward ideological warrior. In any case, this year may not be the best year for Republicans to launch a right versus left crusade. But McCain has infinitely better grounds than Obama to run as a do-what-it-takes reformer.

Of course, the collective action problem hasn’t been solved. So, while most people might agree with McCain on this one, they’re unlikely to do much about it. Meanwhile, those who benefit from government subsidies care a whole lot and have the resources to back those who support continuing said subsidies.

It’s is ironic, though, that the candidate of “change” is in favor of the status quo here while the old coot with “half a century of experience” is the one bucking the tide.

UPDATE: The Times has issued the following correction: “The column by David Brooks on Tuesday said incorrectly that Senator Barack Obama voted last week for the farm bill. Mr. Obama did not cast a vote on the bill; he supported it.” The analysis remains unchanged, methinks.

Clarence Page argues that Barack Obama’s failure to connect with white “working class” voters has more to do with culture than color.

Democratic nominees have not won a majority of working-class white males at the ballot box since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, when Obama was still a preschooler. Since then, Bill Clinton came closest in 1992 by connecting culturally, not just politically. When he said, “I feel your pain,” a lot of people believed him.

[...]

Ironically, despite Republican attempts to paint Obama as a liberal, he is in many ways a cultural conservative. The Democratic National Convention speech that launched his rapid rise on the national stage, you may recall, was grounded in values that made him the Democratic Party’s answer to Colin Powell and Bill Cosby.

People from across the political spectrum hoped Obama might transcend the nation’s racial divide. That effort that was brought rapidly down to earth by the inflammatory sound bites of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But Obama’s image as a unifier can rise again if he speaks to issues that connect with people’s daily lives beyond the narrow world of politics. One example has been embedded in his biography: The breakdown of the American family.

The rise of out-of-wedlock births is one the thorniest issues facing the black community today. But the issue reaches beyond race. Out-of-wedlock births have risen to almost 70 percent in black America, almost half of Hispanic births and more than a fourth of white births. In 1950, the rates for all three were about 10 percent. Add in the high rates of divorce and other parental break-ups, and you have large numbers of American children growing up in single-parent households. Some 24 million children live apart from their fathers, according to the National Fatherhood Initiative. As Roland Warren, the initiative’s director, has said, “Kids have a hole in their soul the shape of their dad.”

As Page notes, Obama knows that from personal experience but he hasn’t done much to take this issue on and that doing so would be an entree into a “national conversation” that could close the cultural gap.

The problem, however, is that Obama isn’t Powell or Cosby. His proposed solutions are very much out of the Great Society playbook. Raise the minimum wage. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. Expand paid sick days. Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act. Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. And so forth and so on. These are all Big Government wealth transfer solutions, putting the burden on society and private businesses rather than individuals.

That’s not how Colin Powell, Bill Cosby — or, indeed, Barack Obama — got to where they are. Their common path? Parents stay together, providing a stable home life and role models for kids. Kids work hard in school and get a college education. Including, eventually, graduate degrees. Work hard and make something of yourself in a career. Marry and raise your own kids. Rinse and repeat.

There’s a huge cultural divide between these competing models.