Radical Leftists Target Joseph Lieberman for Militant Jihad!

Doubt online netroots politics ain't freakin' hardball? Think again.

It turns out that hardline radical leftists are mounting a militant jihad against Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. This weekend Lieberman announced that he "would join a Republican filibuster if the bill contained either a government-run public health insurance option or a proposed alternative to the controversial provision -- expanding Medicare to people as young as 55."

Long despised by the left as a Democratic turncoat, the moderate Lieberman -- who was Al Gore's running mate in 2000! -- is now being mercilessly smeared AND his family is being targeted for personal destruction.

First is the Washington Post's Ezra Klein. The healthcare blogger has come under fire by his own colleague at the newspaper, Charles Lane, in "Ezra Klein's venomous slam of Joe Lieberman":

Thwarted in his bid for the vice presidency in 2000 and thwarted again in his campaign for the presidency in 2004, Sen. Joe Lieberman (?-Conn.) nevertheless retains one awesome power: the capacity to make some liberals lose their minds.

How else to explain the outrageous smear of Lieberman, posted earlier today by youthful policy wonk Ezra Klein on The Post's Web site? Apropos of Lieberman's opposition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposed Medicare buy-in for uninsured people between the ages of 55 and 64, Klein had this to say: "At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score." (Emphasis mine.)

Let me repeat: Klein essentially accuses Lieberman of mass murder because he disagrees with him on a policy issue about which there is considerable debate among people of good will across the political spectrum.

This is disgusting, and pretty illogical, too. Klein brandishes a study by the Urban Institute showing that the lack of health insurance contributed to the deaths of 137,000 people between 2000 and 2006. But last time I checked, Joe Lieberman does not oppose insuring everyone. Indeed, he is on record favoring "legislation that expands access to the millions who do not have coverage, improves quality and lowers costs while not impeding our economic recovery or increasing the debt." He simply opposes the public option, as well as Harry Reid's last-minute improvisation on Medicare. Klein's outburst only makes sense if you assume that there is one conceivable way to expand health insurance coverage, and that Harry Reid has discovered it.

Klein's post is here: "Joe Lieberman: Let's not make a deal!"

Then we have the truly despicable Daily Kos' McJoan (Joan McCarter) and her entirely representative entry, "Lieberman's F-You to America." After detailing the particulars of the bill, the Kos front-pager shamelessly evokes the late Ted Kennedy to get her point across:

And btw, no-class Lieberman's opposition to the CLASS Act is yet another F-you to the memory of his colleague, Ted Kennedy, whose bill this was.

Then, of course, we've got Matthew Yglesias, with not one but two posts now running at Memeorandum. For example, "Welcome to the Lieberman Administration":

Looks like Joe Lieberman decided to try for the old double-cross and say he now opposes the Medicare expansion compromise he’d hinted he would support. Lieberman wants no public option, no trigger that might create a public option, and no expansion of existing programs as a substitute for a public option. And he doesn’t care about expressing that view in misleading ways, timed to cause embarrassment to the Democratic leadership.

So, it's personal with Yglesias. But see also, "The Looming Murder/Suicide of the Democratic Majority."

It's all around the web. Lieberman's become the left's "Public-Option Enemy #1"

But the lowest, most scurrilous attack comes from "Hammering" Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake. She's taking the fight to Lieberman's wife, Hadassah, and her connection to the Susan B. Koman foundation. This started last week or so, but things are escalating. Hamsher's put out the call to Hollywood hotshots to get on the anti-Hadassah jihadi bandwagon. See, "Calling on James Denton, Ellen DeGeneres and Other Stars: No More “Race for the Cure” Cancer Money to Hadassah Lieberman":

On Friday, I wrote a letter to the Susan B. Komen Foundation asking that they stop using money that was raised for cancer research to pay Hadassah Lieberman, wife of Senator Joe Lieberman, as a spokesperson for the organization. The organization issued a statement saying that they refuse to do so.

As a three time breast cancer survivor, I do not believe that those who “race for the cure” and donate their hard earned dollars think they’re doing it so the money can go to Hadassah Lieberman. So today, I’m asking the celebrities who lend their names and their time to Race for the Cure like Ellen DeGeneres, James Denton and Christie Brinkley to join me in asking the Foundation to end its ties with Lieberman, whose professional agenda is antithetical to the cause they purport to advance.

For decades, Hadassah Lieberman has worked for the insurance-pharmaceutical-lobbying complex. Like Newt Gingrich, Dick Gephard and Tom Daschle she never registered as a lobbyist to avoid the official taint, but nonetheless worked at the powerhouse lobbying shops Hill and Knowlton and APCO. She also did stints at Pfizer and Hoffman-La Roche ....

The death of health care reform will no doubt please the clients of Hadassah Lieberman’s lobbying firms, but it would appear to be out of step with the goals of the Susan B. Komen Foundation. In 2008, Komen for the Cure listed $266,314,501 in assets, and Komen for the Cure Affiliates listed $138,428,012. They are by far the biggest breast cancer organization, with close ties to the Republican Party. Executive Director Nancy Brinker was appointed by George Bush as Ambassador to Hungary in 2001, shortly after the Komen Foundation helped defeat a meaningful Patients Bill of Rights and promoted the watered down version Bush advocated.

Okay, so to pass the ObamaCare monstrosity, let's wage a campaign of terror across the entire interest group system! First take down Joe Lieberman's wife, then go after the GOP's "evil" health industry iron triangle. That's taking a big bite, even for Jane!

But William Jacobson's got more, "The Anti-Hadassah Lieberman Jihad Continues":

Not content to call upon the Susan G. Komen Foundation to fire Hadassah Lieberman, Jane Hamsher now is trying to organize secondary pressure on the Komen Foundation through various celebrities who are involved with the organization. The online Petition states:

As I said before, it's a shame that the "public option" advocates are willing to politicize breast cancer reasearch, while at the same time putting another nail in the feminist coffin by singling out a woman for professional retribution primarily because of her husband.

But at this point, almost nothing surprises me.

William points to another entry at Daily Kos, "ALL HANDS: Remove Hadassah Lieberman as paid shill for the Susan G. Komen Foundation."

This aint' the end of this, by any means. I'll update as things get even nastier.

At 5' 6½", George Stephanopoulos Debuts at Good Morning America - UPDATED!!

I just came back from dropping off my kid at school. Turning on the TV, and clicking over to ABC for what's up on Good Morning America, I see George Stephanopoulos finishing a segment, standing with the rest of his crew: Robin Roberts, JuJu Chang, and Sam Champion. Immediately, the height differential between Stephanopoulos and Roberts caught my attention. He's 5'6½". Robin Roberts is 5'10'', and she was in heels.

All of this is just personal observation and no big deal. I remember pictures of George Stephanopoulos during campaign '92, frequently looking up to his boss and later president, Bill Clinton (6'2½"). So it's not like these height differences are new for Stephanopolous and his admirers.

In any case, more on his debut at the New York Daily News, "George Stephanopoulos has smooth 'Good Morning America' debut":

George Stephanopoulos slid over into Diane Sawyer's co-host seat on ABC's "Good Morning America" so smoothly Monday that the most noticeable changes were the hair, jacket and jewelry.

But an interview early in the show with President Obama's spokesperson David Axelrod gave a subtle foreshadowing of what ABC very likely hopes to get out of placing Stephanopoulos in that seat.

Because Stephanopoulos has been on the other side of that conversation, when he was a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton, the interview felt almost like two buddies in the bar sharing a beer and talking shop.

That doesn't mean Stephanopoulos wasn't professional. He committed to the media side of this game a while back, and he delivered his questions professionally.

But there was an undercurrent of comfort that isn't always present when government officials talk with the media, and it would be naive to think ABC isn't hoping that will make "GMA" an appealing destination for people making news.

If it raises some questions about potential coziness between the people who run the country and the people who are supposed to keep an eye on them -- well, that's a legitimate discussion.

Actually, watching "This Week" for the last few years, I doubt questions of impartiality are going to be an issue for Stephanopoulos. A former White House press secretary, he brings more insider knowledge to the business than most, and he's more likely sensitive to charges of partisan bias than others similarly situated. He's a good guy.

But check Entertainment Weekly, which focuses on what COULD be a problem at George's new gig:

George Stephanopoulos began his Good Morning America shift today. It was a little weird watching ABC’s chief Washington correspondent interview Dr. Oz and ask holiday shopping expert Becky Worley earnest questions like, “Now, are there any gifts that are more likely to have coupon codes?” But Stephanopoulos also managed to lobby for a windfall profits tax on the bonuses of bankers in a satellite interview with White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod. They discussed President Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes and how Obama told Oprah he graded himself a B+ for the first year of his administration. I’m surprised Stephanopoulos and Axelrod didn’t delve into Christmas at the White House’s rather illuminating segment about the history of the presidential gingerbread house, but I’ll live.

The Axelrod interview is here: "Bottom Line on 'Fat Cat Bankers'."

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UPDATE: Alessandra Stanley, at the New York Times, notices the height differential as well (with bold added):

He was welcomed with fanfare by his co-host, Robin Roberts, but it wasn’t clear that the two have natural chemistry. Ms. Roberts, who was of a height with Ms. Sawyer, towers over the diminutive Mr. Stephanopoulos; their senses of humor seem equally unaligned. Ms. Roberts is more literal than funny and is given to outsize expressions of feeling. Mr. Stephanopoulos is reserved and permits himself small, sarcastic asides.

Communists at Copenhagen

From Newsbusters, "In Touting 'Climate Justice' Protesters, Networks Oblivious to Communist Participation":

Network journalists who were quick to see racists, haters and extremists amongst the “tea party” protesters were oblivious on Saturday to communists in the “climate justice” march in Copenhagen whose cause they trumpeted -- even as the video they showed included brief shots of marchers waving red flags displaying the Soviet Union's hammer and sickle.

“The streets were filled today with tens of thousands of protesters from around the world, demanding action to stop global warming,” NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt announced before Anne Thompson marveled: “An extraordinary sight in front of Denmark's parliament building: 35,000 protesters filling the square, stepping off on a slow march with an urgent plea: Save the planet.”

On the CBS Evening News, anchor Jeff Glor touted how “around the world tonight, protesters are creating heat over climate change. In Copenhagen, where UN talks on global warming are under way, police estimate 40,000 activists marched, mostly peacefully, to demand an agreement that produces real change.” Reporter Sheila MacVicar began: “From India to Australia, from China to Copenhagen, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets.”

Neither Thompson nor MacVicar mentioned the communist participation obvious from the video that producers ran with their narration, though a Financial Times article included the less-appealing parts of the coalition: “The protesters were a mix of environmental campaigners, church groups and ordinary Danes, many with children, as well as anarchists and communists.”

In a post for the Santa Barbara Independent, Ethan Stewart noted: “From Communist groups and Greenpeace to radical vegetarians and a pro-Iranian crew, there were not many activist sub groups without representation in the march.”

More at the link.

Previously, "Astroturf and Balaclavas: Hundreds Arrested at Copenhagen Protests."

PHOTO CREDIT: Santa Barbara Independent. "Taking It To The Streets: Operation Copenhagen rolls with the masses on Day 2."

Review: Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know

Look, London's Daily Mail has a huge report on the CRU hacker scandal, "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Climate change emails row deepens as Russians admit they DID come from their Siberian server."

It's devasting, as usual. But the left's radical extremists continue to lie and suppress dissent, hoping to drown out rationality, most recently with this pathetic post at Whiskey Fire. Calling conservatives "monkeys," Thers joins the Charles Johson/Andrew Sullivan "science" experts to "debunk" what now widely considered the most damning scientific scandal in decades:

Scientists' work is subject to peer review, and then investigations based upon the theft of their private correspondence. Wingnut Internets denialists get to do whatever they want, including blatantly dishonest stuff like Deep Climate documents. And the rules of Modern Journalism and Civil Debate demand that we look at Both Sides Equally. Well, fuck that.

Right.

Debate this, Mr. Peer Review: From Foreign Affairs, "Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know":

Having combed the peer-reviewed literature on climate change, Michaels and Balling conclude that much of the current public discussion of this important issue is extremely misleading. Some developments -- such as receding glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro or the eroding coastline of northern Alaska -- have been taking place for over a century and cannot possibly be attributed to recent greenhouse gas emissions. Other developments may not pose the problem they are alleged to pose. For example, the reduction of the ice mass covering western Antarctica, which could contribute to a significant rise in the sea level, is partially and perhaps wholly offset by the growth of the ice mass over eastern Antarctica. Indeed, simulations suggest that the continent's total ice mass will increase in the coming decades due to increased precipitation. If the models are correct, the loss of Antarctic ice is not worth worrying about; if they are incorrect, the other, more alarming forecasts should be treated with greater skepticism. Even if the authors have cherry-picked their scientific papers, this book is a useful antidote to the heavy dose of hype to which the public is regularly subjected.

Also, available at Amazon.com, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know.

Thai Authorities Seize Massive North Korean Arms Cache!

Thirty-five tons of North Korean weapons have been seized by Thai officials. At Fox News, "North Korean Weapons Seizure Could Affect Nuke Talks":

The seizure in Thailand of some 35 tons of war weaponry from North Korea and the arrest of five foreigners charged with illegal possession of arms may prove a blow to efforts by the United States to negotiate a halt to Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, observers said.

Thai authorities, reportedly acting on a tip from their American counterparts, impounded an Ilyushin 76 transport plane, carrying explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles, during a refueling stop at Bangkok's Don Muang airport Saturday. Four men from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus were detained.

Also, at the Wall Street Journal, "Officials Probe North Korea Arms Flight: Plane Loaded With Weapons, Detained in Bangkok Under New U.N. Rules, Expected to Reveal Details on Pyongyang Dealing":

Thai authorities will spend the next several days sifting through a massive cache of explosives, missiles and other weapons seized from a plane from North Korea in a case that could offer new details about the secretive country's involvement in the international illicit-weapons trade.

Thai officials detained the plane and its five crew members late Friday after they landed at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport for refueling. Although the final destination of the plane remained unclear, a Thai government spokesman said it was scheduled to land next in Sri Lanka for further refueling and was possibly headed to another location after that.

The detention of the plane and cargo is among the first executions of new rules created by the United Nations Security Council in June to try to halt Pyongyang's ability to sell and transport arms. The rules were developed after North Korea tested a nuclear explosive in late May in defiance of previous U.N. sanctions.

Since then, international authorities have tracked at least two vessels, including a ship detained in the United Arab Emirates carrying North Korean arms and explosive powder that was headed to nearby Iran. But the size of the latest haul -- more than 30 tons -- could provide a broader range of information about the variety and quality of weapons North Korea is capable of producing.

More at the link.

See also, "North Korea, Which Was Removed from the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism Last Year ..."

Sunday Night Dinner!

My wife made a wonderful dinner (I gave my youngest kid a bath in the meantime).

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, broccoli, and rolls.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Bloodied at Milan Rally...

Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was hit in the face by a statuette at a political rally in Milan. The BBC's video, at the link, shows the moment of impact at the first few seconds of the clip. This YouTube below shows Berlusconi's injuries, said to include a broken nose and two lost teeth:

Plus, from London's Independent, "Bloodied but unbowed, Berlusconi insists 'they won't stop me': Italian Premier held in hospital overnight after man attacks him with statuette":

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was last night rushed to hospital with his face covered in blood after being attacked at a rally in Milan.

The 73-year-old Premier was not seriously injured, but the incident marked a further humiliation in what has been an annus horribilis for the billionaire media mogul, already beset by sex scandals, corruption charges, Mafia accusations and a bitter separation from his wife of 19 years.

Mr Berlusconi had been addressing a rally of his People of Freedom party yesterday evening in a pedestrian area in the centre of Milan, his home city. Shortly after, at 6.20pm local time while he signed autographs, a protestor in the crowd hit the Premier squarely in the face with a heavy object, thought to be a statuette of the city's famous gothic cathedral, behind which Mr Berlusconi had just made a long rancorous speech to political supporters.

A clearly shocked Mr Berlusconi appeared to lurch forward in response to the attack, before being bundled into a car by security staff and rushed to the city's San Raffaele Hospital.

Doctors announced that the Prime Minister's injuries were not serious. However, Mr Berlusconi had suffered a "small fracture" of the nose, two broken teeth and an injury to the inside and outside of his lip, according to Paolo Klun, chief spokesman for the hospital. Mr Berlusconi was being kept in overnight as a precaution.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm still here and they're not going to stop me," the Prime Minister was said to have later told friends and colleagues in hospital.

Also, at Gateway Pundit, "Crazed & Violent Leftist Bloodies Italian Premier Berlusconi at Rally (Video)." Plus, Chicago Ray, "When Euro Trash Attacks....Italian Leader Attacked Bloody WIth Statuette ..."

Plus, the New York Times, "Attacker Fractures Berlusconi’s Nose."

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UPDATE: Shorter Michael J.W. Stickings: Berlusconi pretty much deserved it (and it wasn't just a "punch in the face").

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UPDATE II: Post corrected after heads up from Repsac3.

Astroturf and Balaclavas: Hundreds Arrested at Copenhagen Protests

There are two memes worth noting about the mass protests yesterday at the Copenhagen climate-change convention. On the one hand, you've got massive astroturfing, not unlike the left's International ANSWER/ HCAN/SEIU healthcare demonstrations this year. But on the other, you've got menacing thugs, donning balaclava headgear, which is the fashion warmer of choice among anarcho-terrorists worldwide. (And of course, plenty of arrests to go around.) Both of these memes are nicely contrasted to the peaceful, patriotic tea party protests we've had all year, demonstrations that ended up getting grassroots citizens qualified for inclusion on right-wing terrorist watchlists.

Of course, no word yet from the Democrats on the radical left's growing campaign of intimidation and violence at home. See, "Governor Calls Attack on UC Berkeley Chancellor's Home a 'Type of Terrorism'."

Hmm. Maybe Scharzenegger needs to do some more shuttle diplomacy in Washington!

Yo, Janet Napolitano!

Sexism or Female Promiscuity as Empowerment? Feminist Politics and the Tiger Woods Scandal

I'll tell you, I'm not sure how to reconcile this post with my last one, "Lady Gaga: Monster Sensation" (the pop super-diva claims she's a feminist).

In any case, readers might find some pretty meaty (hefty, weighty, er ... significant ...) intellectual juice in this recent feminist commentary on the downfall of Tiger Woods.

Here's Robin Givhan, at the Washington Post, "The Tiger Woods Scandal is a Tale of Sex -- and Sexism":

The women whose names have been linked to the transgressing Tiger Woods have been described, in part, by their physical attributes -- busty -- but also by their day jobs. The list of ladies has included both cocktail and pancake-house waitresses, a lingerie model and two porn actresses. One woman was described all over the Internet as a British broadcaster -- or television presenter, as the folks across the pond would say -- but because that didn't sound nearly tantalizing enough, she was given the added description of being "a cougar."

All the women have been engaged in various degrees of denial, obfuscation or the kind of eager, guttersnipe gossiping typically used to ratchet up the price of a tell-all tabloid interview. None of the women, however, has managed to exude the sort of righteous indignation that one would expect from someone wrongly accused of sleeping with a married man or the shame of having such a dark secret found out.

In many ways, the women have gotten, if not what they deserve, then surely what they could have expected. They are being portrayed as tarts, self-serving women who have stretched the definition of right and wrong until it has snapped in two.

But while Woods is being portrayed as complicated and troubled, the women are merely types. Golf fans muse over whether Woods's reputation can be salvaged, whether it should be salvaged. The women are just "the mistresses." The golfer has been called a dog, a liar and worse. But he still gets the benefit of being perceived as an individual. He is still Tiger Woods.

There are countless explanations for adultery -- loneliness, insecurity, narcissism -- but there is no defense for it. But also indefensible in this ever-growing sex saga is how certain occupations seem to serve as generic evidence of the women's low moral standing as much as the actions they are accused of committing.

For the purposes of this discussion, the job of porn actress will be taken off the table. It seems fair to say that if you have chosen porn as your life's work, you are content with being judged as slimy, stereotyped as skeevy and maligned as sleazy -- "Boogie Nights" and Rollergirl notwithstanding.

But the way in which jobs such as waitress and model have been tossed about in the Woods story, with a kind of wink and a nod, one would think there is something inherently tawdry about carting pancakes or martinis around on a tray. And while no small number of parents might hope that their daughters find a more intellectually stimulating profession than modeling underwear or swimsuits, it's not as if posing in skivvies -- even for a brand called Trashy, as is the case with one of the accused women -- is the equivalent of hanging upside down on a stripper pole with a wad of Benjamin Franklins stuffed in your G-string.

And pity the poor women who have ever been models. It does not seem to matter if one's only experience modeling was as an infant promoting Gerber's. If you should ever find yourself under media scrutiny, you will forever be referred to as a former model, a kind of shorthand meant to imply that you are vacuous -- all style and no substance. Consider Woods's wife, Elin Nordegren, who has been described as a former model even though her biography indicates that she has spent a far greater portion of her life as an au pair, wife and mother. It would be one thing to describe Cindy Crawford as a former model -- the job actually speaks profoundly to who she is and how she came to be part of the popular culture dialogue. Nordegren? The only reason for reminding folks that she once modeled seems to be to paint her as someone who falls into the broad category of "Tiger types."

Whatever might have occurred between Woods and all these women might never be fully known, and frankly, that's the way it should be. But for all the careful parsing of Woods's character, the attempts to reconcile his public persona with what might have been going on in the shadows, the women are being lumped into broad categories. They are being stereotyped as usual suspects for this sort of behavior.

Who knows? Perhaps some of these women make a habit of sleeping with married men. But in the same way that the man in this tabloid drama gets the benefit of ad nauseam motivational dissection, so should the women. They are not as famous as Woods. They didn't change the nature of golf, or sports in general. But just like him, they are human and flawed. Adultery is indefensible. But so is turning these women into interchangeable commodities.

But compare to my good friend Mary Grabar, who addresses the glorification of sexual conquest (and repudiation of traditional morality) among young women today. See "Why Are Tiger's Women Getting a Pass?":

At one time prostitutes and loose women would have been condemned. And so would the cheating man, especially by members of his community and church.

But now, in the court of public opinion, the fault seems to be cast almost exclusively at Woods. In the meantime, one of his mistresses runs for help to famed feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who specializes in helping such scandal-ridden women.

Tiger Woods was able to find many willing participants. That there are women willing to overlook a man’s marital status — especially when he is rich, popular, or powerful — is nothing new, of course. What is new is a celebrity-infatuated culture that encourages such behavior through the promotion of female promiscuity as empowerment.

But while these women will enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame, they will feel a sense of emptiness inside. As these women slip into middle age they will find that their false sense of empowerment has faded, with the men now able to pick and choose. The tables will be turned and many will end up alone, in a “sisterhood” not by choice.

But a man-less future is what the radical feminists wanted all along. That’s why “home-wrecker” holds no currency anymore.

Especially good is Mary's discussion of young women on college campuses, who are indoctrinated into the uplifting career choices of streetwalkers and reality show sexual-conquest social climbers. Should we "pity these poor" women and give them a pass?

Paul Samuelson, 1915-2009

Just saw this at the New York Times, "Paul A. Samuelson, Groundbreaking Economist, Dies at 94":

Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94.

His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Mr. Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centers of graduate education in economics.

In receiving the Nobel Prize in 1970, Mr. Samuelson was credited with transforming his discipline from one that ruminates about economic issues to one that solves problems, answering questions about cause and effect with mathematical rigor and clarity.

When economists “sit down with a piece of paper to calculate or analyze something, you would have to say that no one was more important in providing the tools they use and the ideas that they employ than Paul Samuelson,” said Robert M. Solow, a fellow Nobel laureate and colleague.of Mr. Samuelson’s at M.I.T.

Mr. Samuelson attracted a brilliant roster of economists to teach or study at the Cambridge, Mass., university, among them Mr. Solow as well as such other future Nobel laureates as George A. Akerlof, Robert F. Engle III, Lawrence R. Klein, Paul Krugman, Franco Modigliani, Robert C. Merton and Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Mr. Samuelson wrote one of the most widely used college textbooks in the history of American education. The book, “Economics,” first published in 1948, was the nation’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages, it was selling 50,000 copies a year a half century after it first appeared.

“I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws — or crafts its advanced treatises — if I can write its economics textbooks,” Mr. Samuelson said.

His textbook taught college students how to think about economics. His technical work — especially his discipline-shattering Ph.D. thesis, immodestly titled “The Foundations of Economic Analysis” — taught professional economists how to ply their trade. Between the two books, Mr. Samuelson redefined modern economics.

The textbook introduced generations of students to the revolutionary ideas of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who in the 1930s developed the theory that modern market economies could become trapped in depression and would then need a strong boost from government spending or tax cuts, in addition to lenient monetary policy, to get back on track. No student would ever again rest comfortable with the 19th-century nostrum that private markets would cure unemployment without need of government intervention.

That lesson was reinforced in 2008, when the international economy slipped into the steepest downturn since the Great Depression, when Keynesian economics was born. Back then, governments stood pat or made matters worse by trying to balance fiscal budgets and erecting trade barriers. But 80 years later, having absorbed the Keynesian preaching of Mr. Samuelson and his followers, most industrialized countries took corrective action, raising government spending, cutting taxes, keeping exports and imports flowing and driving short-term interest rates to near zero.

The obituary continues at the link.

Samuelson, as economic advisor, convinced President John F. Kennedy to cut taxes after the 1960 election (when the nation was possibly heading into a recession). My, how Democratic economic policy differs today!

I read Samuelson's texbook, Economics, cited above (coauthored by William Nordhaus), in my grad school international political economy seminar.

My thoughts go out to the Samuelson family.

Lady Gaga: Monster Sensation

Regular readers know I've got something of a thing for Lady Gaga, that is, when she's not straining appropriate boundaries with blackface artistry.

Still, she's hot and I can dig some of her music, even if she's too sexy sometimes for this 40-something father-of-two (my oldest son, 13, says Laga Gaga's totally hot, so what can you do?).

In any case, pop culture fans, Lady Gaga's interviewed at the Los Angeles Times this morning, "Frank Talk with Lady Gaga":

Almost immediately after she deposited herself in a corner booth at L'Espalier, the restaurant at Boston's Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the December afternoon after the first American date of her Monster Ball tour, Lady Gaga made a confounding statement.

"I don't see myself as ever being like anybody else," said the 23-year-old known to her mom (eating lunch nearby) as Stefani Germanotta. "I don't see myself as an heir."

Yet there she was, in a blond Hollywood bob and black tuxedo-bra combo much like the costumes Madonna wore 20 years ago, discussing a show that conjures the spirits of Michael Jackson, David Bowie and the punk-rock drag queens of downtown New York and promoting music -- the newly expanded edition of her 2008 debut album, "The Fame," greatly enriched by eight new songs and repackaged as "The Fame Monster" -- that pays blatant homage to ABBA, Queen, Eurodisco and Marilyn Manson.

Gaga doesn't care. She wants you to trace her references. " John Lennon talked about how with every song he wrote, he was thinking of another artist," she said, making a less expected connection to a pop deity.

She's yet to attain the status of the Beatles, but in the ever-accelerating pop cycle, Gaga is a top sensation, and many people's vote for the most exciting artist of 2009. "The Fame" has sold nearly 2 million copies in the U.S. and reportedly double that internationally; her album and the single "Poker Face" both made the top three on the year-end tally of top iTunes downloads.

"The Fame Monster" continues this sales sweep, but it also considerably advances Gaga's artistic project with some of her strongest songs yet, including the earworm-infested "Bad Romance" and the sumptuously emotional ballad "Speechless."

The world is responding. She's made friends with Madonna, been interviewed by Barbara Walters and met the Queen of England at the annual Royal Variety Performance. The Monster Ball has sold out multiple nights in major cities including Los Angeles, where it comes to the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live for shows Dec. 21-23.

This is all happening not because Gaga is cute or takes off her clothes but because (to use one of her favorite words) she is a monster -- a monster talent, that is, with a serious brain.

During nearly two hours of conversation, she not only reiterates her assertion of total originality but also finesses it until it's both a philosophical stance about how constructing a persona from pop-cultural sources can be an expression of a person's truth -- à la those drag queens Gaga sincerely admires -- and a bit of a feminist act.

"I'm getting the sense that you're a little bit of a feminist, like I am, which is good," she said. "I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little . . . In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, 'I'm great.' "

Gaga's casual use of the term "feminist" was interesting; like many female pop stars, she's rejected the term in the past. But she's evolving. She is growing "more compassionate," she says, and focusing more on ideas of community, especially the one formed by her core fan base, a mix of gay men, bohemian kids and young women attracted by Gaga's style and her singable melodies.

RTWT, at the link. And enjoy, "Bad Romance":

How're Those New Facebook Privacy Settings Working Out for You?

My neocon pal GSFG kept bugging me to join Facebook back in the spring, and I finally did just in time for the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party."

I like it. I don't use it for "social networking," primarily. I use for self-promotion. True, I've met some really nice people on Facebook, and I'd be really happy to meet some of these folks in person. But mostly I want to get blog posts out there for exposure.

Yet, Facebook's been acting funky for a while. I have a perfectly fine Internet connection, but half the time my blog links don't upload, or they don't display properly. What's the use? I just don't log on as much, especially when I'm busy. I've tried to use it a bit more this week, even updating my greeting with brief explanations about my absence. But what's weird now is the front-page "news-feed" is all screwed up. It's not posting real-time entries from your "friends," or at least not on mine. I went on last night and I saw stuff that was "11 hours" old. WTF? Anyway, I guess it has to do with Facebook's new "privacy settings" rollout. I just clicked default when the notice popped up for the new system. I don't post family pictures, and by design I want people to be able to log onto my updates. My URL is facebook.com/American.Power, so folks can check it out and leave me a comment to see how much information is displaying. Is my e-mail available for all? I don't recall signing up with my home address. Is that information available? That'd be pretty lame. I'll go back in an adjust the settings if they're too revealing, but should they be by clicking "default"?

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial on this yesterday, "The Business of Facebook":

This week, Facebook finally implemented the privacy enhancements it promised several months ago. And oddly enough, the world now knows more, not less, about many of the social network's 350 million users. Although that's not what the public may have expected, it's no accident. And as disturbing as it may be to privacy advocates, the change may have the welcome effect of opening users' eyes to the reality of their relationship with Facebook. Simply put, it's not their friend.

And the last laugh may be on the Facebook mandarins themselves. This is looking like the Sitemeter fiasco sometime back (or the "New Coke" decades ago), although it remains to be seen if there'll be a changeback of any sort. In any case, at least, before deleting our accounts, we can get a good chuckle out of Mark Zuckerberg's follies. The Facebook founder apparently got hoisted by his own privacy-settings makeover. See, "Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand the company’s new privacy settings":

When Facebook’s new privacy settings were rolled out yesterday, many privacy gurus complained that the default setting was for “Everyone” to have access to your Facebook profile, meaning users had to be proactive about limiting access to their accounts. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the “new ‘privacy’ changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg either missed that article or doesn’t care. Back in October, I checked the Facebook profiles of the Facebook executive team, and found their privacy settings to be quite high. I wrote of Zuckerberg’s profile at that time:

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO – You can see his photo, his networks (Facebook and Harvard alum), and a list of his 889 friends, but that’s it. You can’t add him as a friend, but you can send him a message.

via How much privacy does the Facebook executive team have?

Well, that’s changed. His profile is now on uber-public settings. I can see his wall, his photo albums, and his events calendar. Zuckerberg recently became a fan of Taylor Swift, uploaded graphic photos of “The Great Goat Roast of 2009″ three months ago, and plans to attend the Facebook holiday party on Friday night. I can even tell you where it’s going to be held.

You can check out his profile here. Here are some screen grabs:

Zuckerberg’s profile to a non-friend. It looks like most of his activity is public:

RELATED: "Facebook Backs Off as Founder's Pictures Go Public."

'Modern Conservatism and the Need for Definition'

A really cool post, from Critical Narrative, "Modern Conservatism and the Need for Definition":

The holidays are a busy time for most people. Not to suggest that my holiday is more hectic than the next person, but in the four coming weeks is my birthday, Christmas, my wife's birthday, my mother-in-law's birthday and my father-in-law's birthday. So, I'm afraid I'm going to be a little pressed for time.

Recently there's been a lot of buzz about a third political party in the blogosphere. A lot of it seems to stem from this Rasmussen Report survey that has the Tea Party topping the GOP in a generic three-way ballot. As some have pointed out, this would inevitably lead to a Democratic plurality victory, much the same way that Ross Perot handed Bill Clinton his first term.

I think in light of this, in might be important to remember the infrequently discussed roots of modern conservatism, and the rather recent history that has shaped the conservative movement. For that reason I'm re-posting a piece I originally put up in early May. I don't suggest that this is any sort of last word on the subject, but I hope that it can illustrate the dynamic changes that occur in politics. Also, I hope that it can help readers think about exactly what kind of conservative they are (if indeed they wish to label themselves as such), without the tribalist value judgements so often accompany discussions of this subject.

So here you go:

A few days ago, I was reading through Suzanna Logan's insert clever s.logan here blog. Logan had written a post describing her dislike for Eric Ulrich, a Republican New York City councilman. Check out the posting here. While there I was perusing the comments section of her post and got into a minor exchange with another commenter on the nature of conservatism. You can read it at the above link to see what I mean.

This exchange brought to mind, the need for definition of certain complicated terms that are oftentimes taken for granted. In this case the term being conservative. According to this commenter, my value system lauding individual freedom and liberty, small government respectful of its citizenry and ideally responsive to its constituency's morals and values, is not truly conservative.

I wrote: "One of the most important aspects of conservatism, for me, is the inclusiveness of it. A person is judged by their own actions, their beliefs, and not their handy race or 'type.' It champions leaving people alone to allow them to develop themselves the way they wish. Liberty and freedom are far more important than tradition."Apparently such remarks are "liberal," and, in a way, that is true. They are indeed classically liberal. Yet, liberalism-- as the word is used today-- is not in any way classically liberal. The term liberalism has been corrupted, and shifted its meaning to being synonymous with the current Left, i.e. socialism. Being progressive has been defined as necessarily "progressing" toward Marx's Communist utopia-- an inevitable utopia according to Marxists (Hegel's influence evident). In fact classical liberalism, as a term, is as dead as the Liberal Party of Great Britain.

My 1980 Oxford American Dictionary defines liberal (way down at definition 6) as "favoring democratic reform and individual liberty, moderately progressive." Does that honestly coincide with the modern idea of liberal? When the media and others use liberal to describe political positions that imposes taxes on cigarettes to pay for government medical services, or institutionalizing political correctness, or nationalizing banking and auto industries, or just generally enlarging government at the expense of citizens' freedoms and income, do they refer to this definition? When Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schummer, Phil Donahue, or Michael Moore describe themselves as liberal, are they referencing this definition?

The source of this confusion is probably mostly due to the current and prevalent Hegelian idea that the world is chiefly made up of binary opposition-- the idea of a thesis confronted with an antithesis e.g. the Left vs the Right, theists vs atheists, Conservative vs Liberal, Democrat vs Republican, etc.--that results into synthesis and "progress." This is a position encouraged by the Left as it reinforces the Marxist's Hegelian tenants upon which Karl Marx based his theories. The fact that this naively simplistic model is demonstrably untrue (Hegel seemed to believe that the Prussian monarch Frederick William III was the eventual end of this thesis/antithesis/synthesis chain, and Marx's apocalyptic predictions have not been proven to be in any way accurate [communism was supposed to be an antithesis to the industrial revolution and the tyranny it inflicted]) has not seemed to stop the vast majority of academicians and the general public to give it great amounts of credence. Perhaps this is because of the superficial similarities between the Hegelian model and the scientific notion of progress towards truth-- but perhaps that is the topic for another post.

Another reason for confusion is the notion that political ideas and stances are largely intractable and have remained mostly unchanged over the years. While at first it seems extraordinarily foolhardy for people to believe this (when has a politician himself remained unchanged?), it is an intensely popular view. I used to believe that Republicans and Democrats could be easily traced back to their origins, and that, although ideas may change, the basic tenets of their policies are unmalleable.

It is a belief that both political parties reinforce. Republicans love to trace their heritage back to Lincoln and herald Theodore Roosevelt, and likewise Democrats love to tie their pedigree to Thomas Jefferson (although a more realistic tracing would be to Andrew Jackson) and celebrate John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The implication being that the tenants that these people derived their popularity from remains largely unchanged today, or at the very least today's parties are directly evolved from policies, values and beliefs espoused by these great past names. Indeed, even the Constitution has been reworked in our minds to be something almost religiously continual-- not merely principles that guide our political thought, but guiding principles that have continued unabated for over 200 years.

Yet in reality, political parties and their positions, like all human endeavors, are finite and changeable things. While some may argue that principles may be universal and absolute truths, human translations of them (if possible) are, by definition, flawed, interpretive, and dynamic. The current relevance of the Constitution is derived from the recognition of this fact. The Magna Carta, while an extraordinarily important event in Western history, deals mostly in feudal rights and has relatively little direct bearing in contemporary political or legal thought. The Ten Commandments, while seemingly permanent, are supported by both ardent religious belief and literally millennia of theological study which has resulted in subtle adaption.

Lots more at the link.

Welcome to Obamaville

Via Glenn Reynolds and Flopping Aces: "Welcome to Obamaville: A Tent City for Homeless in Colorado."

See also, Newsbusters, "'Welcome to Obamaville' Sign At Homeless Tent City, Media Mum."

Berkeley Chancellor's Home Attacked by Torch-Bearing Mob: Governor Decries 'Terrorism'; Activists Pledge, 'Burn Every Rich Man’s House to the Ground'!

I predicted it. In my coverage of the campus protests and occupations across California, I've noted repeatedly that revolutionary cadres are taking over the movement, and that it's just a short step to real anti-capitalist violence. Recall my report, "Berkeley's Wheeler Hall Protest Marks Escalation in Campus Intifada." As I noted there:

My sense is that the only thing missing so far is the arson, kidnappings, and bombings that have marked earlier decades of student revolutionary agitation. And unfortunately, my bet is that it's only a matter of time -- we'll be seeing some Bill Ayers wannabes popping up in short order.

Well, it's difficult, but my sense was pretty accurate. From the San Jose Mercury News, "Torch-Carrying Protesters Storm UC Berkeley Chancellor's Home; 8 Arrested":

As many as 70 protesters, many carrying torches and smashing windows, attempted to storm UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's on-campus residence late Friday in a violent act condemned by university officials and student activists alike.

Eight people, including two UC Berkeley students, were arrested on suspicion of rioting, threatening an educational official, attempted burglary, attempted arson, felony vandalism and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, the university said.

Some protesters threw incendiary objects at the house in an attack that left the chancellor and his wife fearing for their lives.

The group was apparently protesting student fee hikes and budget cuts. The demonstrators chanted "No justice, no peace," as the chancellor slept. His wife woke him up about 11 p.m.

"These are criminals, not activists," Birgeneau said in a statement Saturday. "The attack at our home was extraordinarily frightening and violent. My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives. The people involved in this action will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I want to emphasize that they represent an extreme minority of our students."

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said it was a "matter of luck" the protesters were unable to break into the home before police scattered most of the crowd. Protesters smashed lights, shattered windows, scattered trash and flipped over planters, Mogulof said ....

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement calling Friday's protest "terrorism" and said "those who participated will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law." UC President Mark Yudof called the attack "appalling" and said the "matter is now appropriately in the hands of law enforcement authorities."

And at Bay Area Indy Media, with a screencap just in case, "Torchlit Evening with Birgeneau":

Everyone can follow the thread connecting these events. The police action towards students in the past few months could be accurately called “extraordinarily frightening and violent” as Birgeneau whined of the ruckus that woke him last night. As a leading beacon of the capitalist media recently observed, “Whether you're an oppressive foreign dictatorship or an American state in the process of committing fiscal suicide, you know you're losing the public relations battle when encounters between armor-clad riot police with truncheons and college students are broadcast on TV.” Despite the liberal overtones, Newsweek exposes some important points. The dictatorship of capital is indeed performing an ensemble suicide, and as we are its captives, our will to live can only be expressed through revolt -- refusal, negation, and the unleashing of unlimited human strikes. As students, we are supposed to be the embodiment of society producing its own future, but this society has no future; there will be no “return to normal” and we must find ways to inhabit this reality. From Berkeley to Greece and back around the other side, we are in civil war. This is the basis of modern life, and it is high time we illuminate this fact for any who remain confused.

It’s worth noting that last night, the activist-mediators and movement-bureaucrats who have behaved as volunteer deputies so many times in the past few months were nowhere to be seen. This was neither peaceful nor a protest; the time for dialogue is over. The path of reform and representation is our target as much as the sphere of academic production itself. Birgeneau was right, we are “criminals, not activists”: we are no longer kept obedient by the myth of peace as our normal condition. We must wonder as well about the people who cleared obstructions from the street in the wake of the march – streets used minutes later by police who attacked the mob and arrested 8 comrades on extreme and absurd charges. A reminder to everyone: solidarity means attack!

The rage that was loosed upon the chancellor’s disgusting palace was not only well-deserved, but a long time coming and should not by any means stop there. Not until every knowledge-factory grinds to a halt and every rich man’s house is either squatted or burned to the ground.

See my earlier report as well, " ‘Mobilizing Conference’ for Public Schools Revives ’60s-Era Campus Radicalism."

**********

UPDATE: "Torchlit Evening with Birgenau" is crossposted at "Occupy California."

There's a photo-essay of the "riot." See, "UCB Sparks":

An account of arrest, from "Allie":

Eight fucking hours in jail. Fucking felt up by the female cops as the male officers stood by and watched as they touched our asses, as we lifted our underwires and shook our stuff. They fucking watched. They fucking continued this process of separating us, moving us into different jail cells, taking things away, lying to us, intimidating, threatening violence to us. Fucking bullshit.

And see another occupation blog, calling for an intifada, "Solidarity with ALL arrested in Berkeley!":

While some following the UC unrest are are lamenting the attack against the Chancellor’s mansion, few have offered alternatives to hold him accountable for repeatedly ordering officers to assault and arrest his students. We, however, applaud all actions that students, individuals, mobs, friends, and just regular fucking people take against those that mobilize the violence of the state. The fury and vengeance of those outside the chancellor’s mansion was born through the actions of the police and chancellor themselves; they are now seeing their progeny.

More at the link.

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UPDATE: Linked at David Horowitz's Newsreal blog, "Leftist Students Turn Violent": Hall of Record, "Copenhagen Violence An Old Leftist 'Trick'"; The Rhetorican, "Tea Parties Are to Campus Protests As..."; and Theo Spark, "The Sunday Best ..."

China's Debt Holdings and the Balance of World Power

I'm reading a lot of international relations theory, just not blogging that much on it. I've been hoping to write a longer entry on the current debate on American decline (see especially Niall Ferguson, at Newsweek, "An Empire at Risk"). But since I just found two real cool posts at TigerHawk on foreign holdings of U.S. treasury securities (here and here), I thought I might as well share with readers an important article I just finished reading. From the Fall issue of International Security, Daniel Drezner, "Bad Debts: Assessing China’s Financial Inluence in Great Power Politics."

Lots of folks talk about China's stranglehold on the American economy, that the U.S. is increasingly vulnerable to China's accumulation of massive currency reserves and treasury holdings. For example, hardline leftist Matthew Yglesias writes, "what we’re seeing on Barack Obama’s Asia trip is that the Bush administration’s squandering of American national power has increased China’s status vis-a-vis the United States." But as Drezner points out, complex interdependence creates mutual sensitivites, and in fact it's Washington that enjoys the balance of financial power over Beijing:

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, policy analysts are taking a hard look at the geopolitical implications of the United States’ debtor status vis-à-vis its sovereign creditors. America’s ballooning budget deficit and persistent trade deficit have required corresponding inflows of foreign capital. In recent years, official creditors such as central banks, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), and other state-run investment vehicles have dominated these inflows. The United States owes an increasing amount of money to authoritarian capitalist states. China has risen to special prominence as a creditor to the United States. In September 2008 China displaced Japan as the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt; according to one estimate, Chinese financial institutions owned $1.5 trillion in dollar-denominated debt in March 2009.

What are the security implications of China’s creditor status? If Beijing or another sovereign creditor were to flex its financial muscles, would Washington buckle? Many analysts believe the answer to be yes. In December 2008 James Rickards, an adviser to U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, observed that China possessed “de facto veto power over certain U.S. interest rate and exchange rate decisions.” Similarly, Gao Xiqing, the head of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), recently warned, “[The U.S. economy is] built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don’t you come over and . . . I won’t say kowtow, but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money.” Whenever sovereign creditors appear to lose their appetite for dollar-denominated assets, it becomes front-page news.

If lending states can convert their financial power into an instrument of statecraft, the implications for the United States would be daunting. As Brad Setser recently concluded, “Political might is often linked to financial might, and a debtor’s capacity to project military power hinges on the support of its creditors.” As the United States continues to run large deficits, many other commentators believe that its power is another bubble that will soon pop.

The use of credit as an instrument of state power in great power politics has received urprisingly little scholarly attention in recent years. Setser observes, “Rising U.S. imports of capital—and the displacement of private funds by state investors—has not produced a comparable literature examining whether state-directed financial flows can be a tool for political power." A perusal of major security journals reveals no recent discussion of this issue.

This article appraises the ability of creditor states to convert their financial power into political power, drawing from the existing literature on economic statecraft. It concludes that the power of credit between great powers has been exaggerated in policy circles. Amassing capital can empower states in two ways: first, by enhancing their ability to resist pressure from other actors and, second, by increasing their ability to pressure others. As states become creditors, they experience an undeniable increase in their autonomy. Capital accumulation strengthens the ability of creditor states to resist pressure from other actors.

When capital exporters try to use their financial power to compel other powerful actors into policy shifts, however, they run into greater difficulties. As the economic statecraft literature suggests, the ability to coerce is circumscribed. When targeted at small or weak states, financial statecraft can be useful; when targeted at great powers, such coercion rarely works. There are hard limits on the ability of creditors to impose costs on a target government. Expectations of future conflict have a dampening effect on a great power’s willingness to concede. For creditors to acquire the necessary power to exert financial leverage, they must become enmeshed in the fortunes of the debtor state.

More often than not, the attempt to use financial power to exercise political leverage against great powers has failed. Looking at recent history, what is surprising is not the rising power of creditors, but rather how hamstrung they have been in using their financial muscle. To date, China has translated its large capital surplus into minor but not major foreign policy gains. To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, when the United States owes China tens of billions, that is America’s problem. When it owes trillions, that is China’s problem.

The whole essay is here.

RELATED: Robert J. Lieber, "Falling Upwards: Declinism, The Box Set."

IMAGE CREDIT: TigerHawk and Computational Legal Studies, "Which Countries Own America’s Debt?"

Ouch! Gillette Slashes Woods Endorsement - Tiger's Loss of $100 Million Annually Cuts Deep! Will He Ever Play Again?

From the New York Times, "Gillette to Limit Role of Tiger Woods in Marketing":

One day after Tiger Woods said he was taking an “indefinite break” from the PGA Tour to try to repair his marriage, Gillette became the first of his major sponsors to distance itself, saying it would limit his role in its marketing.

A spokesman said the move amounted to “a timeout” for Woods, who has been at the center of a worldwide scandal for the past two weeks after being linked to numerous women.

Saying Woods has not been featured in recent ads because the official golf season is over, the Gillette spokesman Damon Jones added: “Tiger said, I want to take a timeout from golf and I want to take a timeout from being in the public eye. And we think that’s right that he take a timeout.”

Woods, who earns more than $100 million annually from endorsements, has been a Gillette pitchman since 2007, when he signed a multiyear deal to be a worldwide ambassador with Roger Federer and Thierry Henry.

Whether the Gillette move will begin a mass defection by Woods’s major sponsors, which include Nike, Accenture, AT&T, Tag Heuer, EA Sports and Gatorade, is unclear.

Looks pretty bad, actually. A lot of Woods' income's going down the drain. AT&T's cutting ties as well. Although at US Magazine, "Nike: Tiger Woods Has Our 'Full Support'."

London's Daily Mail has the big question, "Humiliated Tiger Woods quits golf and might not come back after lurid revelations about his private life":

And as Woods, 33, attempts to repair a marriage shattered by lurid reports of his sexual infidelities, the question everybody in his sport was asking yesterday was: will he ever play golf again?

Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy

From Fareed Zakaria's cover story at Newsweek, "The Post-Imperial Presidency":

If you take just one sentence out, Barack Obama's speech on Afghanistan last week was all about focusing and limiting the scope of America's mission in that country. His goal, he said, was "narrowly defined." The objectives he detailed were exclusively military—to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven, reverse the Taliban's momentum, and strengthen the Kabul government's security forces. He said almost nothing about broader goals like spreading democracy, protecting human rights, or assisting in women's education. The nation that he was interested in building, he explained, was America.

And then there was that one line: "I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan." Here lies the tension in Barack Obama's policy. He wants a clearer, more discriminating foreign policy, one that pares down the vast commitments and open-ended interventions of the Bush era, perhaps one that is more disciplined even than Bill Clinton's approach to the world. (On the campaign trail, Obama repeatedly invoked George H.W. Bush as the president whose foreign policy he admired most.) But America is in the midst of a war that is not going well, and scaling back now would look like cutting and running. Obama is searching for a post-imperial policy in the midst of an imperial crisis. The qualified surge—send in troops to regain the momentum but then draw down—is his answer to this dilemma. This is an understandable compromise, and it could well work, but it pushes off a final decision about Afghanistan until the troop surge can improve the situation on the ground. Eighteen months from now, Obama will have to answer the core question: is a stable and well-functioning Afghanistan worth a large and continuing American ground presence, or can American interests be secured at much lower cost?

This first year of his presidency has been a window into Barack Obama's world view. Most presidents, once they get hold of the bully pulpit, cannot resist the temptation to become Winston Churchill. They gravitate to grand rhetoric about freedom and tyranny, and embrace the moral drama of their role as leaders of the free world. Even the elder Bush, a pragmatist if there ever was one, lapsed into dreamy language about "a new world order" once he stood in front of the United Nations. Not Obama. He has been cool and calculating, whether dealing with Russia, Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan. A great orator, he has, in this arena, kept his eloquence in check. Obama is a realist, by temperament, learning, and instinct. More than any president since Richard Nixon, he has focused on defining American interests carefully, providing the resources to achieve them, and keeping his eyes on the prize.

It's a thoughtful piece, if mistaken in basic thrust. The implication on the cover that President Bush was an imperialist is badly strained, and ideological driven (especially now that Iraq has made oil deals with Russia, China, and other non-American concerns, making the imperialist tag exceedingly hard to sustain). Besides, I do not believe Barack Obama is a realist. U.S. relations with Russia under Obama belie the point. See, "Obama U.S.-Russia Nuke Partnership Belies 'Realist' Foreign Policy Creds."

There are some who thought that Obama broke -- ever so slightly -- from narrow realist pretensions during his Oslo speech, and thus neoconservatives raised the possibility that he might eventually adopt moral clarity as a grounding (rather than apologetic moral relativism). But John Bolton's having none of it:

You have to look at the speech whole, just as you have to look at the man behind the speech whole, and I think that's where he runs into difficulty. This speech in Oslo is filled with some of the most amazing misconceptions about everything from human nature to the role of the United States in the world.

Hmm. Human nature. That's the key focus of the classical realist paradigm, and if Obama's clueless to the lust for power and dominance in the world, his shopworn homilies to restoring trust and respecting international law serve only as preaching to the socialist choir of the global appeasement camp.

Cablinasian!

Dan Collins is da bomb!

From, "The Department of Cablinasian Studies" (via):

If indeed Tiger Woods was attacked by his wife, caught up in her own cultural interpretation of wedlock, with a golf club, then that represents the first time the MSM has reported on a hate crime against a Cablinasian. As deplorable as Scandi-on-Cablinasian violence may be, however, it is fortunate that Tiger Woods is a high-profile enough Cablinasian that this is getting a good deal of press coverage, and raising world-wide consciousness regarding this problem.

Democrats Extend TARP to 2010: Obama Endorses Troubled Asset Fund to Finance Jobs Stimulus!

Skip MacLure's got the dramatic headline, "Underhanded! Democrats Extend TARP To 2010 – Election Slush Fund?" But Keith Hennessey's got the analysis, "The 'Using TARP Funds for Stimulus' Gimmick" (via Memeorandum):

Under current law it is not legally possible to “use” returned TARP funds for a new stimulus proposal. The Administration and its Congressional allies want to describe their proposal this way to make it appear that their new spending does not increase the federal deficit and debt. Even if the TARP law is changed, new government spending is just that, new government spending. No matter what optical gimmicks are created, new spending will increase the deficit and debt.

The TARP law allows up to $700 B to be used for any of several specific purposes:

• buying troubled assets from financial institutions; (§101)
• insuring troubled assets held by financial institutions; (§102)
• foreclosure mitigation efforts; (§109)
• direct assistance to homeowners; (§110)
• or buying or insuring any other financial asset that the Secretary of the Treasury and Fed Chairman agree “is necessary to promote financial market stability.” (§3(9)(B)).

The last bullet is the one we used for direct capital investments to large financial institutions (and auto manufacturers).

Unemployment benefits, COBRA subsidies, infrastructure spending, export subsidies, tax cuts, and a whole range of other stimulus ideas are not in this list. Under current law, TARP funds cannot be used for any of these purposes.

The Administration can legally use TARP funds to further subsidize credit for small businesses, through creative use of the above authorities.

Some (many) people are confused by another aspect of the TARP law. The $700 B acts as a revolving fund. The $700 B is a limit on how much can, in total, be spent at any one point in time, but only for the above purposes. In a silly extreme example, Treasury could buy $700 B of troubled assets from Bank A. Suppose the market went up, and those troubled assets were then worth $800 B. Treasury could sell those assets, and the debt held by the public would decline by $800 B. The way the law is written, Treasury could then buy up to another $700 B of troubled assets.

There is therefore no theoretical limit on the total amount of money over time that Treasury can spend for the above listed purposes. There are instead limits on how much can be spent at any one point in time, on how long that authority lasts for, and on how those funds can be spent.

RTWT, at the link.

RELATED: The Hill, "Treasury Extends TARP":

President Barack Obama on Tuesday threw his support behind using some TARP funds to pay for a new jobs bill designed to help small businesses, and Geithner said the improvements in the TARP’s performance put the government in a better position to address the economic and financial challenges faced by the country.

At the Wall Street Journal as well, "U.S. Extends TARP Until October 2010."

Cartoon Credit: Theo Spark.