“‘Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?’ Powell asked. ‘Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?’” With the 2008 election in the books, Gen. Colin Powell reads his party (or at least its talk-radio wing) the riot act. “[I]f the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority…I think the party has to stop shouting at the world and at the country.” That would be nice, yes.
Month: December 2008
The Senate: Never Again.
“‘The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of “a few bad apples” acting on their own,’ the panel concludes. ‘The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.” A new bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee lays the blame for detainee abuse squarely on Donald Rumsfeld and his top deputies. “Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.”
Also of note, the statement today by Sen. John McCain, the ranking GOP member who signed off on the investigation: “The committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody. These policies are wrong and must never be repeated.” It’s good to be on the same page again, Senator.
The Gold Night.
The nominees for the 2008 Golden Globes are announced, with David Fincher’s Benjamin Button, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, and Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon leading the pack with five nods each. I’ve been feeling way behind on my moviegoing all year, so I’m glad to see that all of the best drama nominees (Button, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, The Reader), as well as some of the closer also-rans (Milk, Doubt, The Wrestler) are films that aren’t out yet here. So, since i can’t as yet speak knowledgably about any of the contenders, i’ll hold off on my picks until closer to the big night.
Going into the awards stretch, my favorite film of the year is probably still The Dark Knight (with WALL-E running at 2nd), so I was also glad to see Heath Ledger get his due today. Would that he were around to see it.
(Mission) Control Issues.
“Said John Logsdon, a George Washington University professor who co-wrote the book honored at the NASA party, ‘There is a natural tension built into this situation… Mike is dead-on convinced that the current approach to the program is the right one. And Lori’s job is to question that for Mr. Obama. The Obama team is not going to walk in and take Mike’s word for it.'” The Orlando Sentinel suggests that NASA head Michael Griffin isn’t being particularly helpful to the transition team at the agency: “NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is ‘not qualified’ to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.“
I’ve been quite complimentary of Mike Griffin here in the past. He seems like a smart, take-no-guff fellow, and I’m in general agreement with his views on space exploration. But this sort of tantrum reflects poorly on him. Knowing nothing other than what’s written in this article, it sounds like Griffin, a holder of six advanced degrees, is indulging his engineer’s exasperation with the laypersons who seem to be meddling with his current experiment. But if Griffin wants to see the vision he’s outlined for NASA make it into the next administration, I suspect honey would garner more flies than vinegar at this moment.
Will Write for Food.
“This time, the FWP could begin by documenting the ground-level impact of the Great Recession; chronicling the transition to a green economy; or capturing the experiences of the thousands of immigrants who are changing the American complexion. Like the original FWP, the new version would focus in particular on those segments of society largely ignored by commercial and even public media.” In the wake of the turmoil engulfing the newspaper industry at the moment (see also: The Wire, Season 5), journalist Mark Pinsky argues in TNR for a 21st century revival of the Federal Writers’ Project. Given the woeful state of the academic job market during this current downturn, I bet there are quite a few historians out there who’d give this a “Huzzah!”
In the future, there will be robots.
Post-apocalyptic California is a barren, nightmarish place, and poor Bruce Wayne still needs a lozenge, in the full trailer for McG’s Terminator: Salvation, starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard (and not, sadly, Charlotte Gainsbourg), Common, and Moon Bloodgood. Hmm, ok. I’m still not seeing much of a reason for this film existing, but it doesn’t look terrible, I guess.
The Culling.
“‘It’s just astounding — the very arrogance,’ said Cynthia Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and a close observer of state politics. ‘And yesterday he was saying there’s not a cloud in the sky.'” Poised on the brink of a new Democratic era in Washington as we are, what better time to see the cobwebs cleared out of some our own party’s shady corners? First indicted and pretty clearly crooked congressman William Jefferson, much like his GOP counterpart Ted Stevens, went down to a surprising defeat in Louisiana against GOP challenger Anh “Joseph” Cao. And, of course, in today’s big news, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been charged with all manner of crooked schemes by former Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, including brazenly trying to pawn off Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. (“[It’s] a f**king valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.“)
Well, good riddance to both. Any way you cut it, this is addition by subtraction for our party. (And for the potential conspiracy theorists out there, Slate‘s John Dickerson has a good post on why the President-elect “comes off as good as he could possibly have hoped for: He’s behaving well even when you don’t think anyone is watching.” And, with a tip of the hat to Al Smith and Tammany Hall, Politico‘s Ben Smith ably discusses how Obama kept his independence from the Chicago machine back in the day.)
Escape from New York.
“On an island under military occupation at the edge of an empire, the armed forces of a global superpower detain hundreds and sometimes even thousands of allegedly unlawful combatants. The powerful nation consigns the detainees to a legal limbo, subjecting them to treatment that critics around the world decry as inhumane, unenlightened, and ultimately self-defeating. That may sound like a history of Guantanamo. Yet the year was 1776, the superpower was Great Britain, and the setting was New York City. The ‘unlawful’ combatants were American revolutionaries.”
in a mixed review of Edwin Burrows’ Forgotten Patriots, friend and Columbia prof John Witt notes “eerie” parallels between Guantanamo Bay and revolutionary-era Manhattan, and offers choice advice for President-elect Obama. “To succeed, he will have to reunite the twin American traditions of interest and idealism. They are traditions his predecessor tore apart, but they are the true legacy of the Revolution.“
City of Glass.
“The Superman exists, and he’s American.” Several months after the fact, the Philip Glass-scored, Comic-Con Watchmen footage finally leaks onto the tubes. This looks more promising than the last trailer…but it’s always easier when nobody’s talking.
Update: In related news, see also Matt Groening’s Watchmen. (Via LMG and mkh.)
WP: Beware the Brain Trust.
“While Obama’s picks have been lauded for their ethnic and ideological mix, they lack diversity in one regard: They are almost exclusively products of the nation’s elite institutions and generally share a more intellectual outlook than is often the norm in government.” Yikes! Apparently delving deep for ways to stir up trouble, the WP raises an eyebrow at the purported braininess of the Obama cabinet. “They are really smart people, but they will never take an obvious solution if they can think of an ingenious one. They’re all too clever by half…These degrees confer knowledge but not judgment. Their heads are on grander themes…and they’ll trip on obstacles on the ground.“
Hmmm…I dunno. After several years in academia, I’m well aware of the ways in which really smart, intellectual-minded people can end up overthinking a problem. But, particularly after the last eight years, choosing brainy folk as a Cabinet-filling strategy still sounds a heck of a lot better to me than the alternative.