America, Religion and the Debates

So, you thought you didn't hear anything about religion at the first debate? Wrong. Check out this fascinating post by Bill Bishop over at Slate.

Among other things, this just underlies my ever-growing conviction that old divides may scar over, but they never really go away. Look at the last few electoral college maps, and then look at the Civil War.

Or, if you really want an object lesson in how long historical patterns can persist, look at the full extent of the Roman Empire:


....then look at Cold War Europe:



Historical and cultural divides, once established, really tend to persist.

I Knew It!

That hypercircumcised peckerhead Steve Schmidt (McCain campaign manager) is on Meet the Press claiming that McCain engineered the bailout package. What a piece of shit.

Conspicuous by His Absence

Bunch of old white people just got up in front of some cameras on the hill to announce the largest government spewage of cash in history. Don't know what the details are yet, but everybody showed up to crow about a resolution. Pelosi, Frank, Paulson, Shumer, Blunt, everybody.

Everybody, that is, except John McCain. I've been concerned that McCain would try to take credit for whatever emerged and crow that his leadership (the Chinese fire drill of the last few days) was what made it happen. But he's nowhere to be seen, and his name was not mentioned. Indeed, it seems that if anybody got credit for the breakthrough, it was Pelosi.

Debate One: Tie Goes to Obama

I've been MIA again, yes I know, and despite my promises to the contrary. For all two of you who might drop in on this from time to time, my apologies. I don't know what to do except just pick up where I left off.

Political junkie that I am, I was up all night watching the pregame, the debate, and the postmortem. (I'm working a shift next week, the killer Mod 4, 1PM to post-midnight, please-fuck-me-deeper-harder shift, so I'll have to catch Biden-v-Bambi on TiVo). Bottom line: both men missed opportunities, and it ended in a draw. And a draw goes to Obama.

But that's understating it a bit, isn't it? This was, nominally at least, the foreign policy debate, and it was the last bar for Obama to hurdle in the Can-He-Be-CiC department. McCain, conversely, really, really needed to show the country that Obama was unqualified to be Commander in Chief.

That's right, he needed to show it. Not tell it. This is a critical distinction for people who write, say, science fiction and other less noble forms of literature. "Show, don't tell," is a key mantra in the liturgy of the effective storyteller. McCain kept telling us that Obama "doesn't understand." At the same time Obama kept showing us that, well, yeah, he does understand foreign policy, maybe even better than John "Bomb Iran" McCain. During the foreign policy debate he was able to fluidly spout enough facts to give voters the impression he knew what he was talking about, look more hawkish on killing Bin Laden than McCain, and appear reasonable, cautious and presidential.

Obama didn't just demonstrate his own fluency in fp, he was also able to go after McCain. Obama's litany of "you told us x about Iraq, and you were wrong" was one of the top sound bites of the night.
But he got as good as he gave. To my eye, Obama clearly lost the exchange over diplomacy--even though any thinking voter has to conclude he's right on the issue, McCain had the upper hand on the quip-o-meter at the end of this skirmish. But overall, Obama impressed me on the foreign policy side of the debate, and should have easily cleared the CiC bar with most voters. That's a triumph, and a major missed opportunity for McCain.

On the economic end of the debate, McCain fared better, but only in a negative sense, by steering the discussion away from the meltdown-bailout issue to his obsession with earmarks and spending. That kept Obama from connecting as fully as he wanted to with bread-and-butter issues--but it kept McCain away from the kitchen table, too. In fact, while Obama took as many opportunities as he could to talk about working Americans and the middle class, McCain never uttered the words--an "issue" that's getting plenty of attention on the airwaves, blogs and campaign trail today. Obama looked Too Cool for School on this front end of the debate, when he needed to be warmer and less professorial. Cool is great for the fp debate, and he had it there, but on the economy Obama needs more of that old Clinton bite the lip and feel your pain. He didn't have it. So the economy debate goes, marginally to McCain, for keeping O off his game. But it's a pyrrhic victory. And Obama has two more chances to wrangle Mac on the economy. My guess is the Professor won't make the same mistakes next time.

Before I went to bed, the insta-polls all seemed to be giving the debate to Obama, and by much larger margins than I would have guessed. On points, I thought it was a tie, or maybe McCain, although on style I thought it was all Obama. Obama was dignified, articulate, engaging, relaxed, commanding and, well, presidential. McCain was scrunched-up, prickly, snarky, and refused to look at his opponent, which seems to have given many viewers (including this one) the impression that debating this upstart was somehow beneath him. Doesn't play. Still, a 15-point spread in the insta-polls and focus groups for Obama? I have to think that this is a gmisch of sampling bias (probably 2-5 points right there) and low expectations for Obama on the foreign policy end.

Bottom line: neither guy self-immolated or knocked out the other. And that's a good night for Obama, if not a great one.

Open Mike Night: Political Commentators Caught Doing Political Commentary

Chuck Todd thought he was cutting to some governor. Oops. Instead, he and his round-table, including conservative commentator Peggy Noonan and former McCainiac Mike Murphy, got caught on an open mike, unwittingly telling the world what they really think. Below the clip there's a transcipt, courtesy of my new heroes LAT and Andy on the discussion board at Five Thirty-Eight. This is priceless.




Noonan: [Can't hear since Todd (who is still on air) is talking over her]

Murphy: Um, you know, because, I come out of the blue swing state governor world. Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, I mean, and these guys, this is all how you win a Texas race, just run it up, and it's not gonna work.

Noonan: It's Over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good.

Todd: [can't really tell what he says, but he mentions something about "insulting to Kay Baily Hutchinson]

Noonan: [says something I can't understand]

Todd: She's never looked comfortable up there..

Murphy: Oh, fuck that.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they can obtain?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives...[couldn't hear the end of it]

Todd: Yeah, but what's a narrative?

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

Murphy: You know what's the worst thing about it, the greatest of McCain is no cynicism, and..

Murphy and Todd together: This is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

Sarah Palin, Secessionist

Below is a video of GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin addressing the convention.

No, not the GOP convention. The AIP convention.

The Alaska Independence Party was founded in the seventies by Joe Vogler, who argued that the referendum that brought Alaska into the Union was unlawful, and that Alaska could and should secede from the United States. Volger died in 1993, and his last wish was that he be buried in Canada, rather than under American rule. The party has remained a player in Alaska politics, and many elements within the party continue to espouse secession. They've also toyed with the idea of becoming part of Canada. The party's website features this prominent quote from Vogler:

"I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions."

This is the party to which Palin belonged in the 90s, with whom she still cultivates good relations, and whose convention Palin is addressing from the Governor's Office, telling them to "keep up the good work."

Talk about Country First.

Hero No More

I've seen any number of conservative shills try to make lemonade out of the catastrophically irresponsible selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate by John McCain, by casting it as a gutsy move, doing what Obama didn't have the courage to do--putting a woman on the ticket.

Bullshit. There's nothing ballsy about the selection of Sarah Palin. Quite the opposite. It was rank cowardice.

By all accounts, McCain was looking at a number of Midwestern GOP governors for the VP slot. But he was particularly inclined to tap indpendent Joe Lieberman. But as Lieberman--a bold, courageous and potentially game-changing choice--seemed more possible, religious conservatives and none other than Karl Rove began the arm-twisting. There was talk of a floor fight.

And so McCain relented, and went down yet another notch in my estimation. Then he descended even further when, in a desperate and flagrant pander, he tapped a dangerously unprepared neophyte to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

So it boils down to this:

The Hanoi Hilton couldn't break John McCain.

But Karl Rove did.

I'm Back...

It's been a crazy month, but a good one--long hours in the lab, and lots of kerfluffle to take care of.

In the lab, it's been eventful. We've ditched our implantable "Refrig-a-RAT-or" and developed a "Cool Suit" for our hypothermia model. Our focal ischemia model is coming together in preparation for the ISIS-funded investigation of our combination therapy approach.

And...we had another paper accepted! More on this later.

How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out the People's Justice

That's the title of my most recent story sale to Escape Pod. I haven't talked about EP here, but if you haven't checked it out, you should. EP is a weekly science fiction podcast produced by Steve Eley, a world-class Good Guy. It's a very successful program, and Steve regularly brings his listeners audio versions of stories from the likes of Mike Resnick, Cory Doctorow, Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Bear, Paul DiFilipo and Isaac Asimov. When Steve was just starting out, he came to me for the very first story he ever published, a nasty little piece called "Imperial." It's a source of unending pride to me that Steve launched his popular enterprise with one of my stories, and that he continues to let me do reviews, even though I'm very irregular about it and my reviews frequently result in flame wars. (For a taste, go to EP and check out the response to my review of "300.")

The reading on "Goldie" is better than I could have hoped for. Steve and Dr. Jennifer Bowie captured exactly what I was trying to do, and both story and reading have been getting great reviews on the EP blog (which can be a pretty tough crowd).

Hispanics Breaking for Obama?

This is potentially huge. I've always suspected that Obama's support among Hispanics would be very soft at best, especially given McCain's history with this demographic and his conscientious wooing of the Hispanic vote. This poll is just a snapshot, but in conjunction with other data I've seen, and especially given Obama's performance with Hispanics during the primaries, this could speall real heartache for McCain.

Obama Rocks--World Tour 08

I've been off the blog for a few weeks--a very busy time indeed. I got funded for a project to investigate combination therapy for stroke (yes! at last!), and I'm working with my colleagues to launch it. And I'm busy trying to get a fellowship grant out the door, along with a new animal research protocol. Excuses, excuses, yes I know. But at least you can't say I'm not using my time well.

What to say about Obama's cruise through the Old World? This shot puts him in the CiC chair, next to Petraeus, looking like buddies.

Oh, and while he was doing photo-ops with the troops, Maliki endorsed his withdrawl plan, which led one political operative with ties to the McCain campaign to surmise: "we're fucked."

And this article, which must be giving McCain a bit of dyspepsia right now, just appeared in Time, which means it will be read in dens, kitchens, lavatories and waiting rooms from now to November.

Over at fivethirtyeight, the model has narrowed Obama's lead, although the polls are volatile and the simulation still shows him winning 58% of the time with 292 EVs. But I would look for a bounce after Obama's world tour. If it materializes, Obama can take some assurance that he's gone a long way to clearing the CiC bar for the presidency, which means he can probably walk right into the White House. If no post-world-tour bounce materializes, I think that's big trouble for Barack.

Goodbye, You Hateful Little Bag of Pus

I love Chris Hitchens, not because I always agree with him (I frequently do not), but because he is the most eloquent rabid dog on the planet.

For example, consider his contribution to world's newest political genre, the Jesse Helms Obituary. Compared to others working in this field, Hitchens is Shakespeare. His good-riddance obit is a veritable sonnet. Couldn't have said it better myself. Must reading.

Kanji Flashcards, Grade I

My first set of video flashcards for Japanese kanji. These are also available on my web page at sullydog.com, along with a lot of other Japanese language study materials.

Good News for the Lab

Me and my colleagues, Drs Anthony Lagina and Jie Li, have been awarded a grant from the WSU Cardiovascular Research Institute to study combination therapy for focal ischemic stroke. It's a small award, but it will definitely help us launch a project we've long been itching today. This will be a preclinical study, and if the results are positive, it will easily translate into a clinical investigation with patients. We are psyched.

Will Powell Endorse Obama?

A delicious prospect, to say the least. Here's today's take on the possibility from NPR. Needless to say, whichever way Powell goes, it will be huge, and the fact that it's even possible that Powell would endorse Obama is also huge.

Neither Fishy Nor Foul

Fun piece by Taegan Goddard at Political Insider on the GOP's failure to package Barack Obama during the primary season:

...it's clear Republicans haven't yet settled on who the man is they are facing in the presidential election.

Sometimes he's part of the country club set, other times he's an outsider with a strange name raised by a hippie mother.

Sometimes he's a Christian with a controversial pastor, other times he's a secretive Muslim.

Sometimes he's the black activist who resents white people, other times he's the Ivy league lawyer who doesn't understand the working man.

Sometimes he's naive to the ways of Washington, other times he's politically ruthless and overly ambitious.

And now it's probably too late. Obama has opted out of public financing, and will have nearly unlimited resources to package himself--and John McCain. The decision puts a stain on Obama's halo, but one that voters are likely to forgive, if they care about it at all.

Meanwhile, McCain's brand is seriously tarnished. A long string of flip-flops have made "Straight Talk" a punch line, and he's still trying to get out from under the Bush III label.

It's a given that Obama will spend a lot of time and money selling himself as a patriot with fresh ideas, while going after McCain's policies. His strategy going forward seems clear.

But which way does McCain go? Having squandered the primary season's opportunities to smoke Obama by characterizing him as an unexperienced country-club Muslim radical black Christian flag-hating terrorist, does McCain now spend his relatively limited resources rehabilitating his own image? It's a viable approach. McCain does have gravitas and experience, and although his maverick image is way overblown, he can point to important differences between himself and the GOP Dads.

Or does he focus on building distrust of Obama? Hasn't worked so far, but the secret of the Big Lie is to repeat it incessantly until the hypnotic mantra takes hold.

Or--here's a thought--does he engage Obama on the issues? McCain has legitimate differences with Obama, on issues from Iraq to healthcare. Problem is, it's not at all clear that he can simply paint Obama as a radical liberal, given the electorate's current antipathy toward the GOP.

Politically, we're in a brave new world--a favorable season for Democrats in which the nominee is in a position to outspend the GOP nominee by 3-to-1. How do the Republicans play it?

Wow.

New ad from Oregon senator Gordon Smith extolling the legislative work he's done with Barack Obama.

Yeah, that's right. Smith's a republican.

"They Have To Do That To Remove The Jaw"

Lost a filling yesterday afternoon, and had to go the dentist. No big deal, right? Quick nerve block, drill out the failed filling and any new decay, pack with amalgam, see ya bye. Right? Except all of a sudden they're talking about root canals and crowns and all other manner of crimes against humanity.

There were a number of technical difficulties. These culminated in an "easy last step" during which they took an acrylic mold of my repaired teeth from which to mold the permanent crowns.

And then they couldn't get it off.

Seriously. It took two hours, a heavy drill bit, a pair of pliers, a load of elbow grease, a cathartic amount of suffering and, eventually, an additional nerve block to get this lump of steadily hardening super-glue out of my poor mouth. They had to destroy the fucking thing to get it off, along with a fair amount of soft tissue on my gum and cheek. And then, of course, they had to cast another one.

So I'm sitting at home today with some pain pills, flashing on this:

I've Just Discovered...

...Failblog, the clearing house for lolcat-style documentation of human folly:


An essential public service.

Obama Flip-Flops; Decides Not To Be Putz After All

Everything we hear from the McCain camp on Obama's funding reversal is just a mixture of sour grapes and fear. They know that by opting out of public financing, Obama will have the option of carpet-bombing McCain in the general--as a look at Obama's first ad buy clearly demonstrates.

On the ABC roundtable this week, Matt Dowd tries to make the case that this move will tarnish the Obama brand, and he won't get that much extra juice out of it anyway--Obama would find it difficult to spend the extra moolah during the general. Roberts counters that Obama spends his money very wisely, on a state-of-the-art ground game. Donaldson and Dowd retort that in the states where Obama outspent Hillary...he lost.

That's true, but Donaldson and Down miss the point. In his recent massive ad buy, Obama is targeting states he knows he won't win. I mean, really--Alaska? But as he did with Hillary, Obama can use his money to engage McCain everywhere, and bleed him dry. By opting out of public financing, Obama will have the luxury of forcing McCain to compete in states that should be safely red.

At some point during this exchange, Stephanapoulous notes that Brazile has been very quiet. He calls her out, and she nails it:

"I'm sitting here laughing at people who think that Senator Obama will be harmed by going outside the system."

On the other hand, Dowd makes the most succinct and incisive formulation of the general I've heard so far:

"This is an election that Barack Obama could lose....but John McCain can't win."

Exactly.