John McCain, Feminist Warrior

Despite his numerous appearances on "The Daily Show," Senator John McCain is not especially known for his comic styling. Here's a sampling of his gendered humor -- and I'm not even going to repeat his alleged worst joke.

In June 1998, this McCain "joke" at a Republican fundraiser was widely reported:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

Fox News, 2006:

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it."

McCain on beating Hillary Clinton, November 2007:

"How do we beat the bitch?" McCain's supporter asked him. And as you can see, it appears that after McCain joked about offering a "translation" of his supporter's query, he said:

"That's an excellent question."

Yes, of course, there's video.

ABC's Jake Tapper, 2008:

In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was asked by columnist Jon Ralston why he didn't choose Gov. Jim Gibbons to chair his Nevada campaign.

"I appreciate his support," McCain said. "As you know, the lieutenant governor is our chairman."

Why snub the governor? Ralston asked.

"I didn’t mean to snub him,. I've known the lieutenant governor for 15 years and we've been good friends," McCain said. "I didn't intend to snub him. There are other states where the governor is not the chairman."

Maybe it's the governor's approval rating and you are running from him like you are from the president? Asked Ralston in a question McCain clearly found loaded.

Said McCain, chuckling, "And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago."

Cindy McCain: Miss Buffalo Chip? August 2008

McCain dipped in and out yesterday at the big bikers’ rally in Sturgis, S.D., to the roar of motorcycles and the admiration of veterans in attendance.

We’re pretty sure then that when he offered up his wife Cindy, who has graced Vogue this year and other magazines as one of the country’s most beautiful women, to compete in the rally’s Miss Buffalo Chip contest, that well, he didn’t entirely get — as an ESPN writer suggests — that the contestants sometimes wind up topless, walk about in thongs (Shocking!) or are otherwise scantily clothed. (Oh! Debauchery!)

Or maybe he did and was just having a little fun.

Video here.


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Just Duck-y

Yesterday, on the Duck of Minerva group IR blog, I posted "The market punished Russia" concerning adverse economic reaction to Russia's war in Georgia. Could Russia be heading for another crash?

On September 4, I posted "War on Pakistan?" The piece looks at the recent US border incursion into Pakistan from Afghanistan -- with commando forces aboard helicopters. Needless to say, Pakistan's government is not happy about the threat to its sovereignty.


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Roots music in Brighton

I listened to some quality roots music while attending my sister-in-law's wedding on August 23-24 in Brighton. Sunday's band was a local string-heavy group with a classic sound. The original email I received in advance of the wedding said the band would be The Magic Number, which self identifies as playing "Gipsy Jazz Swing based songs." Their myspace page includes a number of music tracks.

However, some of the equipment at the wedding was for The Mountain Firework Company. At least two people are members of both bands so there's a lot of room for confusion. The band's website has this CD review:

In the tradition of the sort of Folk music that tends to come out of the UK, the men of The Mountain Firework Company have their share of fun, whimsical songs, that could inspire the waving of beer before running down the street naked starts to sound like a good idea. Overall, this is a really great record, and The Mountain Firework Company is a really fantastic band. Their melodies are catchy, their lyrics are well-put, and their instrumentation is intuitive and tight.

I liked the band's sound, whether it was The Magic Number or The Mountain Firework Company.

Saturday night the 23rd featured London's Hula Groove, which The Independent on Sunday apparently called a "hugely entertaining and professional soul, funk & disco function band." They had the crowd dancing as they played a great deal of old Motown as well as soul, funk and disco. This video gives you an idea of their look and sound.

Alas, Hula Groove wouldn't let former Beatmaster Richard Walmsley play along.


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"Words mean something"

Barack Obama doesn't think John McCain and Sarah Palin are agents of change. The AP, September 6:

"Don't be fooled," Obama told the crowd surrounding him in a large barn. "John McCain's party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge" for nearly eight years.

"I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up."

Obama is referring to the fact that Palin was for the "bridge to nowhere" before she was against it. Plus, she used $27 million in appropriated earmarks to fund "the approach road to the bridge."

In the same event, Obama also went after McCain's extensive ties to lobbyists and President Bush:

McCain has acknowledged voting with President Bush 90 percent of the time in Congress, Obama said.

"And suddenly he's the change agent? Ha. He says, 'I'm going to tell those lobbyists that their days of running Washington are over.' Who is he going to tell? Is he going to tell his campaign chairman, who's one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell his campaign manager, who was one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?"

"I mean, come on, they must think you're stupid," Obama said as the crowd laughed and cheered.

Joe Biden too was on top of his game this weekend.


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Obama's Pragmatic Foreign Policy

I had some extra time on Friday afternoon, so I read Barack Obama's "The World Beyond Iraq" speech, which he delivered on March 19, 2008. That was the fifth anniversary of the start of the war. Don't confuse that speech with the widely covered foreign policy address he delivered in mid-July.

I was struck by how frequently Obama referenced pragmatism in the March foreign policy address -- five times! While Obama mentioned "reality" several times, he never used the word "realism" in this speech. Indeed, his all-American pragmatism surely suggests something different from realism -- emphasizing the commonsensical, practical and empirical, while downplaying both power and ideology.

The first two references to pragmatism come in consecutive paragraphs near the beginning of the speech -- prior to explaining the flaws of the overall Iraq strategy (even if "the surge" was a successful military tactic). Essentially, Obama contrasts his own pragmatism to George W. Bush's ideological foreign policy judgment in the case of Iraq:

History will catalog the reasons why we waged a war that didn't need to be fought, but two stand out. In 2002, when the fateful decisions about Iraq were made, there was a President for whom ideology overrode pragmatism, and there were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports, and too much time reading public opinion. The lesson of Iraq is that when we are making decisions about matters as grave as war, we need a policy rooted in reason and facts, not ideology and politics.

Now we are debating who should be our next Commander in Chief. I am running for President because it's time to turn the page on a failed ideology and a fundamentally flawed political strategy, so that we can make pragmatic judgments to keep our country safe. That's what I did when I stood up and opposed this war from the start, and said that we needed to finish the fight against al Qaeda.

Obama's next two references to pragmatism appear in the middle of the speech, in consecutive paragraphs about U.S. policy toward Pakistan and al Qaeda:

If we have actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in Pakistan's border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot. Senator Clinton, Senator McCain, and President Bush have all distorted and derided this position, suggesting that I would invade or bomb Pakistan. This is politics, pure and simple. My position, in fact, is the same pragmatic policy that all three of them have belatedly - if tacitly - acknowledged is one we should pursue. Indeed, it was months after I called for this policy that a top al Qaeda leader was taken out in Pakistan by an American aircraft. And remember that the same three individuals who now criticize me for supporting a targeted strike on the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, are the same three individuals that supported an invasion of Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

It is precisely this kind of political point-scoring that has opened up the security gap in this country. We have a security gap when candidates say they will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but refuse to follow him where he actually goes. What we need in our next Commander in Chief is not a stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality or empty rhetoric about 3AM phone calls. What we need is a pragmatic strategy that focuses on fighting our real enemies, rebuilding alliances, and renewing our engagement with the world's people.

The last reference to pragmatism appears in the final line of the speech:

When America leads with principle and pragmatism, hope can triumph over fear. It is time, once again, for America to lead.

Google the words "foreign policy pragmatism," by the way, and you get references to pragmatism in Chinese, Russian and Indian foreign policy -- as well as pragmatism employed by JFK.

I should perhaps also note that Obama again references pragmatism in the closing paragraph of his July address. In this instance, he explains George Marshall's wisdom at the beginning of the cold war:

When General Marshall first spoke about the plan that would bear his name, the rubble of Berlin had not yet been built into a wall. But Marshall knew that even the fiercest of adversaries could forge bonds of friendship founded in freedom. He had the confidence to know that the purpose and pragmatism of the American people could outlast any foe. Today, the dangers and divisions that came with the dawn of the Cold War have receded. Now, the defeat of the threats of the past has been replaced by the transnational threats of today. We know what is needed. We know what can best be done. We know what must done. Now it falls to us to act with the same sense of purpose and pragmatism as an earlier generation, to join with friends and partners to lead the world anew.

Finally, in the scholarship on the democratization of international relations (and organizations), Molly Cochran has been offering pragmatism as a means superior to deliberative approaches.


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Election forecasts

I did not attend the American Political Science Association convention last weekend, but I have read a few accounts of interesting panels. For example, David Glenn of The Chronicle of Higher Education provided a useful summary from last Friday, "when eight scholars offered stylized forecasting models for this fall's election."

Seven of the scholars predicted popular-vote victories for Mr. Obama, but two of them forecast margins so thin that they said he might easily lose the Electoral College. The eighth panelist was not ready to make an official call because his model is based partly on Labor Day opinion polls. But he said it was very possible that his model would predict a victory for John McCain.

Here are the specific predictions. The article briefly describes their methodologies:

• Brad Lockerbie (East Carolina University): Obama 58%

• Thomas M. Holbrook (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) Obama 55.5%

• Alan I. Abramowitz (Emory University) Obama 54.3%

• Christopher Wlezien (Temple University) Obama 52.2%

• Alfred G. Cuzán & Charles M. Bundrick (University of West Florida) Obama 51.9

• Helmut Norpoth (SUNY Stony Brook) Obama 50.1%

• Michael S. Lewis-Beck (University of Iowa) Obama 56.6%. Lewis-Beck worked with Charles Tien (CUNY Hunter College) to make a race adjustment in his model. Result: Obama 50.07%

• James E. Campbell (SUNY Buffalo) uses Labor Day polling and was thus unable to predict a winner on the date of the panel.

According to Glenn, Campbell "said that second-quarter growth was so strong that his model would predict a victory for John McCain unless he polled less than 47 percent on Labor Day."

McCain, in fact, polled less than 47% on Labor Day weekend, though I'm not sure if the input number has to be adjusted to eliminate undecideds and third party supporters. Because these models predict the popular vote for the two major party candidates, the outcome shares always add up to 100 and ignore votes for third party contenders.

Incidentally, while others on the panel apparently agreed that Obama's race provided a large unknown in this election, not everyone was pleased by the Lewis-Beck method:

Abramowitz scorned Mr. Lewis-Beck's procedures: "I don't make ad hoc adjustments to my model," he said.

The various forecast papers are forthcoming as articles in the October PS: Political Science & Politics. In the past 2 elections, these models have accurately forecast the popular vote winner, though they were more accurate in 2004 than in 2000:

In 2004, seven scholars—essentially the same cast of characters—offered forecasts at the political-science meeting. Six of the seven correctly predicted that Mr. Bush would win, and four of their models were within 2.5 percentage points of Mr. Bush's actual vote share. But in 2000 they whiffed, predicting that Al Gore would win between 52.8 percent and 60.3 percent of the two-party vote. His actual share was 50.2 percent.

Because the nominating conventions are so late in the year, this will be an unusually short general election campaign.


Note: I think readers need an account to access most of the content from The Chronicle of Higher Ed. I logged on using our Department's code.

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Acid House, 1989

Former Beatmaster Richard Walmsley is the husband of my wife's sister's husband's cousin.

So, we're practically related. And we have kids around the same age.

Richard appears briefly in this video. I think that's him beginning at 0:53 and again for a longer time at 1:39 (the guy without glasses):

Beatmasters eventually produced for Pet Shop Boys, who donated to the Tate Modern, which my family just visited in London.

Small world, eh?


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Observation from abroad

I read this line from an interview with Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan before leaving the USA, but it seems worth noting upon my return from the UK:

Michael Caine had a great line: "Superman is the way America sees itself, but Batman is the way the world sees America."

During my 10 days abroad, people addressed this worldview indirectly -- whether discussing the Olympic successes of China, the war between Russia and Georgia, or the seemingly improbable idea that the Democrats have nominated Barack Obama for the presidency.


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Medieval Gitmo

I've been in the UK for the past week, which explains the lack of blogging. Friday, the family and I visited the Tower of London, which is apparently the UK's largest tourist attraction.

About 15 years ago, my wife and I visited the Tower and I mainly recall seeing the Di and Charles wedding video (on a loop) and the crown jewels. Both made a fairly pleasing impression. It was hot that day and we walked to St. Paul's and worked up quite a thirst.

This time, however, we had more time to check out the various towers and I was really struck by what the place represented. At this site, hundreds of years ago, enemies of the state (crown) were imprisoned, sometimes tortured, and even killed for their beliefs. Most prisoners seemed to be held for their strong (and out of favor) religious faith, though all were seen as political enemies as well.

The Tower of London was a medieval Gitmo.

My kids took my picture by the Traitors Gate and we moved on to Covent Garden.


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Hypocrisy watch: Georgia edition

Because of Iraq, American officials are having a hard time explaining their opposition to Russia's intervention into Georgia.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, quoted by CNN on August 11:

This is completely unacceptable and crosses a line...The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe -- those days are gone,"

Watch it here. As Jon Stewart pointed out last week on The Daily Show, the entire war would apparently have been OK outside Europe.

Secretary of State Condi Rice, August 13, 2008:

I am not going to sit here and judge each Russian military operation. I am going to say that when you start bombing ports and threatening to bomb airfields and bombing a city like Gori and bringing troops in a flanking maneuver on the western flank of Georgia and tying up the main roads between Georgia – between Tbilisi and Gori, that’s well beyond anything that is needed to protect Russian peacekeepers. And that is why Russia is starting to face international condemnation for what it is doing.

This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed. And so, what Russia, I think, is seeing is that to the degree that this is about South Ossetia, about even Abkhazia, let’s accept that it is time to move the forces back. Let’s accept that it’s -- first to end the fighting, move the forces back to August 6th, and then have an international mediation to try to resolve these conflicts within the context of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia.

Watch it here. Rice almost seems to be implying that Russia could not justifiably attack Georgia simply because Russia is too weak in the post-cold war world.

President George Bush, August 15:

The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us. A contentious relationship with Russia is not in America's interest. And a contentious relationship with America is not in Russia's interest.

With its actions in recent days Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century. Only Russia can decide whether it will now put itself back on the path of responsible nations, or continue to pursue a policy that promises only confrontation and isolation. To begin to repair its relations with the United States and Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must respect the freedom of its neighbors.

Watch it here. Again, was the behavior only bad because Russia attacked a neighbor?

John McCain, August 13, 2008 (via Yglesias):

"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations."

Watch it here.

Back in 2002 and 2003, a lot of critics (pdf alert) warned that states like Russia, India and Israel might take the logic of "preemption" from the Bush Doctrine in order to justify wars that would otherwise be seen as illegitimate.


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Trade with China

You probably already know that China is one of the United States's largest trading partners. Likewise, you probably also know that the US has an enormous trade deficit with China, annually importing hundreds of billions of dollars more worth of goods than it exports.

Do you know what the US imports from China and what it exports?

I ask because the standard answer does not provide the full picture.

Yes, the US imports lots of toys, clothes, and shoes from China. If you don't believe me, just check the labels on these products.

However, by doing business with China, "American" companies are also required to comply with many Chinese political practices that would be unacceptable in the US. Companies like Google, Cisco, and Microsoft essentially help China monitor and censor information. Clyde Prestowitz:

In fact, the global corporation acts as a conveyor belt to carry non-democratic values into democratic societies. This is not to say it can't work the other way around, but the power relationships are such that it's more natural for a Google to yield to China's Internet police than to defy them.

The US exports machine, appliance and airplane parts, seeds, and plastics to China.

However, the US also exports its inequality. Twenty-five years of integration into the global economy has made the distribution of wealth in China increasingly unequal. The World Bank recently reported on this topic, but the fact is obvious to anyone watching the Olympics. Consider all those empty seats in sold out sports venues:

Officials and observers offered several explanations for the empty seats. Some speculated that tickets reserved for sponsors and VIPs might be going unused in preliminary or qualifying rounds as officials with a claim to them wait for the finals.

I face the same problem every time I attend a AAA baseball game in Louisville. The overwhelming majority of box seats are empty -- sold before the season begins to local corporations and elites -- but the outfield area is often packed with fans like me who hold tickets only to that day's game.


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Ready, aim, ...Duck

Today, at the Duck of Minerva, I've posted "Global Strike Task Force" to explain my apprehension about Donald Rumsfeld's "transformation" of the military. Arguably, the US has become a "first strike nation" and now has the infrastructure firmly embedded to make that strategy possible. Times of politico-military crises are the most worrisome, for obvious reason.

August 7, I posted "Back to the Future IV" about Vladimir Putin's threat to reestablish Russian military ties with Cuba. I hinted that this might spell a new cold war -- and then Russia went to war with Georgia.



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China Hotline

President Bush was in China when Russia and Georgia went to war over the weekend; thus, he could talk to Chinese leaders directly if he needed to discuss the developing crisis.

However, if Bush had been in Washington, he could have used the new hotline linking Washington and Beijing. Reuters, February 29, 2008:

China and the United States formally agreed on Friday a long-planned hotline to improve communication between their two militaries.

Leaders of both countries agreed to establish a direct telephone link for quick communication in times of crisis during the APEC summit last September,

The article refers to the new hotline as a defense telephone link (DTL), so perhaps Secretary Robert Gates used the phone this past weekend. It was operational by April, according to the AP, as Gates participated in the first test.

The hotline has been in the works since at least 1998 and is said to be modeled after the one linking the US and former Soviet Union since 1963 (just after the Cuban Missile Crisis).


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Russia declares war on China & its NBC allies

OK, so the 2008 Olympics were supposed to be China's big "coming out" party. Twenty-five plus years of nearly double digit economic growth has made the Chinese a lot wealthier than they used to be. The Olympics provided a venue for demonstrating their cumulative success -- even if it is merely an inch deep.

Now, thanks to an increasingly horrifying war, Russia has spoiled China's party. Much worldwide media attention, which from China's perspective should be devoted to coverage of their Games, is now going to Russia and its war in South Ossetia and elsewhere in Georgia.

NBC will also like suffer as they committed $850 million to broadcast the games. NBC won't have all that much airtime to show war footage and will likey lose eyeballs to other 24 hour news stations.

The battle for "prestige politics" is thus between Russia (and its presumed allies in CNN/Fox/BBC) and China (with its NBC allies). China's moves are all played out in advance (the TV schedules were announced weeks ago), but Russia has a lot of latitude to make news.

Already, various parties are throwing around the terms "genocide" and "terrorist" to describe events on the ground.

What are you going to watch? Terrorism, or volleyball? (Well, maybe you'd say "volleyball," with the visuals in that story).

Genocide, or synchronized swimming?

By the way, my Duck of Minerva colleagues Dan Nexon and Charli Carpenter are doing a great job discussing the war (see also this and this, for other good perspectives on the conflict).


Note 1/4/12: Edited to remove a direct photo link at a reader's request.

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Dark Knights

Do Batman and his villain antagonists reflect their times? If so, what is the latest "Dark Knight" film trying to say about post-9/11 America? I've been thinking about that since last night, when I finally caught the latest film.

In the "self-reflexive" campy 1966 "Batman" movie and TV series, Batman was a good guy and Joker was a criminal, but both seemed fairly harmless. The "clown prince of crime" declared

A joke a day, keeps the gloom away!

Batman always saved the day and stopped the Joker and his criminal pals, but he was typically captured first and was almost always dependent upon some chemical antidote to a poison or some other modern invention.

Why was Joker a comical character and why did Batman depend upon what then passed for high tech? Well, the entire "Batman" TV series and movie was a parody of the era:

Batman incorporated the expressive art and fashion of the period in its sets and costumes. It also relied excessively on technological gadgetry transforming the show into a parody of contemporary life.

Remember the scene in "The Graduate" when young Benjamin is offered one word of advice? "Plastics."

That was essentially what "Batman" was saying about America in the mid-1960s. I'd add fake. Cheap. Disposable. Oil-based.

In the 1989 "Batman," by contrast, both Batman and the Joker were far more serious. Joker made modern life unlivable for the residents of Gotham City, but that's because he threatened individual lifestyles. Joker invented and distributed a toxic chemical additive that convinced people to give up their hair gel, deodorant, and makeup. Indeed, this Joker was born from a vat of toxins. His crime revealed the colorless and unappealing reality beneath the veneer of 1980's opulence and chemical dependence.

Batman was needed to clean up the mess. He was like Rudy Giuliani prosecuting high-profile mafia dons and insider traders -- and later closing down porn shops and graffiti artists. This is a line spoken by Joker, from IMDB:

Now, I can be theatrical, and maybe even a little rough - but one thing I am not, is a *killer*. I am an artist. I *love* a good party. So, truce. Commence au festival!

Batman closed down Joker's party and made it safe for citizens to enjoy their city's adornments.

Today, in the latest "Dark Knight," Batman is deadly serious and the joker is a Über-terrorist. Joker is not motivated by money; he sets fire to millions of dollars even after he has stolen from the mob. He wants to disrupt and destroy the fabric of modern civilization -- not merely expose its underbelly. The results are predictably loud and explosive. Some innocent people are casualties, but there's nothing especially personal about those deaths.

IMDB has this choice Joker monologue to bed-ridden and badly burned district attorney Harvey Dent:

You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just, do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, [Police Commissioner] Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how, pathetic, their attempts to control things really are. So, when I say, ah, come here, when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I'm telling the truth.

It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and uh, look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did, to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hm? You know what, you know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger, will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all, part of the plan. But when I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos.

The most unsettling aspect of the movie comes in the resolution of the story. Batman can only stop the Joker by employing secrecy, extrajudicial means, and rendition of foreign nationals. An important public servant becomes an outright criminal and the public is tempted to tolerate mass killing to preserve their own safety.

In the end, however, director Christopher Nolan seems to be at least somewhat hopeful. An oversized convict in an orange jumper seizes a bomb detonator away from a jail warden and tosses it out a window before the public official can kill 100s of innocent people to save his own skin.

That's something you should have done 10 minutes ago, the prisoner tells the warden.

Batman is still around at the end of the movie to continue his personal "war on terror," but his reputation is scarred. Presumably, neither his high tech toys nor his strong personal will can restore his public standing.

Presumably, the sequel will reveal how he seeks redemption.


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McCain's ad is "Painful"

John McCain released another new TV ad today: "Painful." The AP notes that it is airing in 11 key states targeted by the McCain campaign.

A female voiceover says, "Life in the spotlight must be grand, but for the rest of us times are tough. Obama voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000."

It is interesting that Senator McCain says "times are tough" for "the rest of us."

Who is he trying to kid?

McCain is not really like the rest of us, thanks primarily to his affluent heiress spouse, Cindy McCain. She is worth at least $27 million -- and may be worth $100 million. From ABC blogger Jake Tapper:

CNN this week [reported that]... she "is not only a wife to Senator John McCain, she is also his meal ticket. Her reported 2006 income of more than $6 million exceeded her husband's earnings 16 times over. That money pays for a wealthy lifestyle of high end condos, an Arizona ranch, flying in a corporate jet, and more."

The McCains apparently have 8 or 9 houses and access to a corporate jet.

The Senator wears $520 loafers.

The AP story also reveals the truth about the ad's tax details. Obama didn't vote for a binding policy that would have increased taxes -- and if he had, John McCain would have agreed with him just a few years ago:

The ad's most specific assertion — Obama voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 — is based on a nonbinding Senate budget resolution early this year that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 be allowed to expire in 2011 as scheduled. Obama has criticized the Bush tax cuts and called for ending them for the wealthiest taxpayers.

McCain didn't support Bush's tax cuts when they were passed but has said he supports them now. He contends that to allow the cuts to expire would be tantamount to a tax increase.

Someone not altogether committed to "truthiness" might ask Senator McCain why he flip-flopped on Bush's tax cuts. The far right has been attacking McCain about this since 2000.

In the primary season, Mitt Romney said McCain failed "Reagan 101" because of his past tax arguments.


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Anthrax and Iraq

Michael Cohen of Democracy Arsenal argues that the anthrax attacks of fall 2001 were not especially meaningful in the Iraq debate:

They didn't use anthrax to sell the war; they used nukes! It simply belies reality to argue that the anthrax attacks and the White House spin that Iraq was responsible for them played a significant role in making the case for war. The evidence simply does not exist to make such a claim.

Is this correct?

Well, the fall 2001 anthrax attacks only killed a handful of people, but they provoked much wider fear, as that link to an AP poll reveals. A fall 2001 Newsweek poll also found significant concern -- linked directed to 9/11 and bin Laden:

MAJORITIES OF AMERICANS say it is at least somewhat likely that large numbers of people will die in future terrorist attacks, either through the use of conventional explosives (74 percent), anthrax mailings (57 percent), smallpox or some other disease (55 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.

A clear majority (63 percent) of the public now attribute anthrax attacks throughout the world at least in part to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Moreover, the administration was able to draw upon that fear to accuse Iraq of making and storing literally tons of anthrax -- capable of killing millions, they asserted. Officials didn't have to accuse Iraq of making the 2001 attacks. The prior attacks had what media scholars call a "priming" effect on the story:

Consider this statement from President Bush in Cincinnati, October 2002. The following is his first substantive point in the address about the alleged threat from Iraq:

"Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?

In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions."

Bush also pointed to Iraqi anthrax in the September 12, 2002, UN address and in his 2003 State of the Union address. Those were his three most significant speeches in the buildup to war. By March 19, his last pre-war speech more ambiguously referenced "weapons of mass murder."

Perhaps most importantly, anthrax played a very significant part in Colin Powell's UN Security Council presentation, which was itself critical in garnering editorial (and public) support for the war. Editor & Publisher found support on newspaper op-ed pages literally doubled overnight after Powell's presentation.

Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material....

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction.

Read back through Powell's remarks and you will quickly be reminded just how certain the threat was said to be -- and how colossally wrong they were.

In any case, I think it is safe to say that anthrax played an important role in the buildup to the Iraq war. These "weapons of mass destruction" were part of the fall 2001 hysteria and states like Iraq with WMD and linked to terrorists had to be stopped (NSS 2002).


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Anthrax

Newspapers and TV networks are running various stories about the suicide of a scientist who worked for decades at the Fort Detrick, MD, research center. He was apparently considered the FBI's prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks and allegedly feared that he was about to be arrested.

Even more interesting, Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has a lengthy piece discussing "Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News." Greenwald takes the opportunity to explain the effect of some leaks to ABC that are highly troubling in retrospect. Someone lied to ABC, claiming that the anthrax included a chemical agent known to be used exclusively by Iraq.

as I've amply documented, those ABC News reports linking Saddam and anthrax penetrated very deeply -- by design -- into our public discourse and into the public consciousness. Those reports were absolutely vital in creating the impression during that very volatile time that Islamic terrorists generally, and Iraq and Saddam Hussein specifically, were grave, existential threats to this country.

...There can't be any question that this extremely flamboyant though totally false linkage between Iraq and the anthrax attacks -- accomplished primarily by the false bentonite reports from ABC News and Brian Ross -- played a very significant role in how Americans perceived of the Islamic threat generally and Iraq specifically.

Is this true?

I would argue that the anthrax attacks put Iraq front-and-center on the agenda in fall 2001, though as I've previously documented, the seed had already been planted. Indeed, the links between Iraq and 9/11 started to be asserted publicly on 9/11.

Greenwald notes that former AEI neocon Laurie Mylroie relied upon the ABC report.

As I documented on my blog in a series of posts back in September 2003, Myrloie was all over the news in fall 2001 linking the anthrax attacks to Iraq. Indeed, she and her allies were linking 9/11 and Iraq immediately. Here's a quick summary of my prior work:

Mylroie was on national television 40 times between 9/11 and December 31, 2001. Her thesis also got a lot of coverage in the nation's newspapers and opinion magazines, so there's a lot of stuff to sort out.

To begin, neocon ally James Woolsey was on ABC about 3 pm on 9/11 crediting Mylroie with linking Iraq to al Qaeda, the prior World Trade Center bombing, etc. He said Iraq could have been behind that day's attacks. The next evening, Mylroie was on CBS during its prime time coverage of the attacks rehearsing the range of her wild charges and calling al Qaeda a "front operation" for Iraq. Woolsey was on CBS later that night (west coast prime time) repeating the claims he'd made on 9/11. He was also on ABC again 9/12 making the same allegations and crediting Mylroie. Jim Hoagland mentioned Mylroie's "convincing case" in a Post op-ed on the 12th. It was widely syndicated around the country.

Mylroie herself had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the 13th, calling the 9/11 attacks an "act of war" likely linked to Iraq. She was then on FOX on the 14th, on C-SPAN on the 15th, and CBS again on the 19th. S was even quoted favorably on NPR that day. Once the anthrax attacks hit, she was very busy the next month or so, adding Canadian TV, CNN (multiple appearances), and additional appearances on ABC, Fox, C-SPAN, NPR and CBS. In October she was on various Fox News programs again and again and again.

I didn't find any appearances for Mylroie on NBC stations until December, but she made up the difference quickly with multiple appearances on MSNBC and CNBC.

Did this continue into the Iraq war debate? Well, in October 2002, Myrloie told PBS: "The Pentagon believes Iraq is behind the terrorism that began on September 11 and wants to include Iraq as a central target in our war on terrorism."

I think one could reasonably argue that the anthrax attacks primed the country to worry about dubious mushroom clouds in fall 2002 -- and about Iraq as the specific source of concern.


Note: I think my last post about anthrax was in December 2006. Does everyone recall that former Mylroie coauthor and NYT reporter Judith Miller is one of the journalists who received anthrax by mail?

Small world, eh?


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