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Here's two book reviews that I need to add to the ether. One with tons of press, one a fictional version of a heavy topic regarding newspapers. Tenuous connection to toss out as an intro - my apologies.
"Game Change" by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin is that truly rare political journalism book - one that is good enough to stand on the writing alone. But in this case there is also a great deal of well-crafted narrative there. Obviously. The stunning thing about "Game Change" for me is that while they don't craft new character profiles (everyone already knows the personalities of Obama, the Clintons, the Edwards, McCain, and Palin), they absolutely NAIL the air in the room around them. You can see and feel what they're like. That's great reporting. Any political junkie in your life that hasn't read this must be instructed to do so immediately. For all the journalism that I read, I'll nonetheless admit that this book shaped my view of all those players more than anything I've read since 2007. My rating - a strong A-minus.
"The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman is the sort of novel I generally love. Hot, topical, smart, full of characters that surprise and impress. I tore through it, compared to my usual limp while being too easily distracted by a half dozen other things I'm reading. It's not long, and the writing for a first novel is, without a doubt, impressive. It reminded me of Colson Whitehead's first book ("The Intuitionist"). That's a double-edged sword. Because in both cases, I wanted desperately to see what they'd do next, while not being especially thrilled with the way I felt after this book was done. For completely different reasons, mind you. Rachman paints a vivid, cleverly formatted picture of a dying newspaper and the largely horrible people that orbit around that institution's rotting core. Early on, I was knocked flat and happy by how well he drew his characters - introduced and covered deeply in each section, then dropped completely unless by incidental references in other sections. Then I began to hate how cynical the pictures were that he'd painted. Eventually I wanted to tell him to knock it off. At the end, I tossed the book aside and muttered something not especially nice about the time spent getting dicked around. So I can't recommend it. I give it a C-rating. If only judged by the quality of the writing, I'd give him at least a B-plus. But the people he draws - oh gawd, that's at best a high-D. Which I feel sort of bad about, because I was rooting for this author big time going in.
Hope your own double-sided coin is good either way today. Rock on.
Sunday for those of us churchless liberals is usually about one thing. Unless there's brunch. The lump of deadtree that is the Sunday NYTimes. I know, I know - I need to finally move over to the entirely electronic form of this weekly dive into the finest paper in all the land. So today, my two faves come from other online sources.
The Politico pulls some pretty petty reporting of Hillary's campaign being horrible at paying their bills. But I can't wait for the direct-mail pushback from said lackies as they run to that unseemly copy center way out in the burbs that still writes up advance work orders. Synopsis - Hillary is broke.
New York Magazine has a super-snarky throwaway piece that offers some dish on how John and Elizabeth Edwards feel about the lobbying for their endorsements. Synopsis - Hillary's been very professional, Obama's been a bit of a dick.
As a bonus, here's one half-hearted shout out to the NYTimes for a Sunday Styles piece on the inherent connectivity between Brooklyn and the East Bay. I don't buy the synopsis for a second (they are inextricably connected by some sort of culture warp) since almost as much time is spent talking crap about things miles away from the East Bay. Kinda like saying Staten Island and Milwaukee are one in the same and spending half your time ordering at The Brat Stop in Kenosha. Yet one of my personal faves - the Mollusk Surf Shop in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco - gets a big blurb. I love the Mollusk (best t-shirts in California). So, weirdly...whoo-hoo.
Hope your don't lose an unread section in an unfortunate French Toast spill today. Rock on.
One quick comment from last night's Dems debate - Hillary's crap-filled coda was borrowed from both Bubba circa '92 and this season's John Edwards. Talk about a Xerox moment. With duplicates. I sincerely hope she gets hung up on this sanctimonious bunk for a bundle of days in this crucial period - extremely stupid strategy on her part.
We're heading down to the Bay Area this evening for a handful of days. Maya's turf from way back when. Expect a handful of photos and updates from the visit. Hope your own weekend leads you somewhere full of liberals stoked with loads of Rice-A-Roni. Rock on.
Yesterday's Florida GOP Primary gave us a front-runner, and cost us a terrorizing shmuck. The Florida Dems also held a meaningless beauty contest that absolutely no one should listen to the Clintons handicap. And John Edwards is finally out of gas after running steadily in third-ish place for nearly 5 years. Just wait for all the over-the-top analysis to completely miss the point. Which is - you gotta win something to actually have a shot at winning something. Hope you keep things in proper perspective today. Rock on.
What if you cut interest rates 3/4ths of a percent and even the financial markets said..."waah?" Well, that's what we'll be seeing in the next few days. The fact that the major American markets could still dump billions of value on a day following such an announcement is the canary in the coal mine. I'm no economist. Although I did get a "B" in a pair of econ courses nearly two decades ago. So allow me to offer one pithy comment. Check your gut. It knows you, maybe you don't know it. This flux is all gut. Let's hope we've got the right tonic to settle things down in the coming months.
I should riff fully on the Democratic Debate in South Carolina last night, but I'm still playing catch up during naptime with our TiVo. But since everyone's throwing bombs, I'll offer my own. Hillary fights far dirtier (and smarter) than anyone in this race. My rationale is that I briefly combed votes doing opposition research bunk for Howard Dean's campaign in the last Presidential cycle. The sort of stuff Hillary's offering as broadcasted contrasts with Barack Obama is part and parcel of the ammunition I was told to look for - parse the voting record by bill names, look at some comparative markers (voting members with 100% ratings from various agents), categorize by funding vehicle (which Federal/State department), and look for the punchline. I warn everyone who takes my advice with a grain of salt that these tactics tarnish us all. Obama's people surely do the same research. I just honestly believe they're not playing it as cynical nor are they so willing to cross check this early in the period, so to speak, as the HillaryBorg. Do with that what you will.
Hope your own skates are sharpened and you don't swallow that wad of chew in your cheek before intermission. Rock on.
Boy, was I wrong. Hillary apparently nailed it with women voters by showing her human side. Unlike almost every single living American spouting off yesterday about what was bound to happen in New Hampshire, I'll actually apologize. I'll never be wrong again. Promise. We should all expect the next rush to judgment will come from the same punditocracy describing Obama's demise. I should take a break from commenting and just read a few books about other things and/or begin prepping brats for this weekend's NFL Playoff game between the Packers and Seahawks. But, well...I'll just pop off briefly to keep the chops up. Barack Obama will raise cash in the next four weeks like a junkie Trump. Hillary Clinton will get back on the inevitability train, taking the occasional heart-to-heart Sanka break. John Edwards will labor on and still no one will notice. Bill Richardson will pour three fingers of single-malt and light a phattie. Dennis Kucinich will keep the Viggo Mortensen vote, lose those few thousand hippie-veggie-oil biodiesel votes. My Republic Party picks for New Hampshire were pretty close, so I'll stand pat - John McCain faces many laps worth of hurdles but pulls it out. Mitt Romney will flop all over the place like a wounded marlin. Mike Huckabee will add the surviving cast of "Hee Haw" to his celebrity cavalcade. Ron Paul will soon be riding the bus with Mike Gravel. Duncan Hunter will still be in the closet. And we'll hear about it until this fascinating election actually ain't so much anymore.
Hope your endorsements all come from the exotic dancer unions today. Rock on.
It's go time. Everyone in the political universe and their central-casting retarded cousin and/or loving wife is currently in New Hampshire, prepped and over-caffeinated before tomorrow's Primary. So I'm going to offer a hopefully tasty rhetorical biscotti to munch on while considering anyone else's at-least-as-plausible prediction. With a challenge. I'll bet all comers One Canadian Dollar to offer up their own full breakdown. The closest by points (over or under) to each individual pick, then totalled for a final score wins the Loonie. I accept PayPal. Or general kudos. Game on.
The Democrat Party
Barack Obama - 46%
Hillary Clinton - 29%
John Edwards - 16%
Bill Richardson - 7%
Dennis Kucinich - 2%
The Republic Party
John McCain - 36%
Mitt Romney - 28%
Ron Paul - 18%
Rudy Guiliani - 9%
Mike Huckabee - 7%
Random morons - 2%
You can tell what I'm feeling. Hope y'all have the popcorn ready for tomorrow's feature. Rock on.
Couple quick hard bankable shots for your consideration. Sorry to have been incommunacado for a few days.
I've not been watching Monica Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. But I'll catch up so you don't have to. The very most I can say thus far is that she's sure got purdy hair. As far as either the Constitution or her worthiness for the job she ran into the ground go, she makes me throw up in my own mouth a little. Once again the defense of yet another loyal Bushie for anything they've ever done directly is that they didn't actually do it. She'll get another job, probably immediately, for some soulless, misogynistic law firm that just wants to brag about hiring the latest Fawn Hall. Personally, sexy testimony ain't been the same since Valerie Plame sauntered into and out of the spotlight. But as far as the blowjob from this Monica goes - we all could do so, so much better.
So the Dems in Congress appear to have blinked. John Edwards benefits the most from their retreat on an Iraq withdrawl timeline - say what you surely will about that guy, but he's got the best political instincts I see walkin' and talkin' these days. Oh, and Hillary suffers the most. Everyone else just takes a high hard one to the karmic temple with the eventual, devolving result of funding this disaster without principle.
Speaking of karma - is anyone even paying attention to the fact that our military just announced another 9 combat deaths? In one day. That's at least 80 this month, following 104 last month. Sorry to mention it. It's just, ya know, the truth.
On much more interesting ground, Maya's cranking along really well as we head into the summer. Uncle Jake and Aunt Sarah were just here for a visit during which we took Maya too among other Seattle events the Norwegian Constitution Day Parade (May 17th, or "Syttende Mai" as they call it here in Ballard). On the way to which, by the way, we found our latest lost camera (in the glove compartment - I didn't realize Maya had a key). Jake gets the inadvertent credit. You'll soon get the benefit from an array of new shots. I get to change my lost/broken lifetime digital camera total back to two. So we all win.
Hope your own Constitutions are fully ratified today. Rock on.
John Edwards just confused the crap out of me. Politico.com blew the lead with the entirely wrong leak that he was getting out of the race. And then his people manipulated the crap out of the story by pumping the announcement. This is BALLS, people. Can't wait to see where it heads.
I'll offer one Edwards story, with a brief editorial. I saw him in the Student Center on Dartmouth's campus when I was working for Dean in the week leading up to the New Hampshire Primary in '04. He was an hour late. Lame. The people running the show were making excuses to everyone, and I remember one particularly beautiful advance staffer distracting every single reporter in range. Frickin' smart advance work...but that's another story. Eventually, John came on. And SLAYED the crowd. Everyone there left on board. I saw every other candidate in the field that Primary lead-up. John was the best. But that's maybe what is so scary. This guy has known some tragedy. And this guy has an incredibly smart, tough lawyer as a wife (translation: Clinton echo to undercut Hillary). I'd say don't count John out. He smart. And crafty.
Al Gore's got the good press. But Barbara Boxer has balls. The way she smacked down James Inhofe was stronger than anything anyone's offered that doosh to date. Please do yourself a favor and watch it.
Hope all your campaigns continue unabated. Rock on.
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