Some of the people proposing these things aren’t behaving so.
I refer you to my post about Bruce Schneier’s blog entry.
Like most implementations of central planning and control, this is likely to be fraught with unforeseen potential disasters. I can’t wait for the movie…
Lawrence Lessig posts on his blog about the growing unease he feels watching someone from his party get the Clinton treatment. He doesn’t like it when it’s one of “us.”
Watching the debate last night, I wondered what happens when we become as bad as they. (WE=Dems; THEY=Karl Rove GOP). For there was a cheapness and dishonesty in the exchange last night that I haven’t quite recognized before. Why I hadn’t registered this before is an obvious question — for of course, cheapness and dishonesty in presidential politics has been with us for a long time. But I recognized something about it last night I hadn’t recognized before.
The rest of the piece carries on with the same tone as the Jonathan Chait piece I blogged about earlier.
For there was a basic lack of integrity in the Clinton show last night. As a former friend of Clinton put it to me last night, “I now understand just why people hated the Clintons so.”
Oh, really? (I feel like I’m channeling Don Surber now!)
It goes on:
We’ve heard this about the Clintons from the start: they would do anything. But watching her utter words she knows are false, or words which even if technically true, create a plainly false impression, was, again, disgusting. Just how small is this person now apparently leading the Democrats? Just how small have we become?
Uh huh.
And what if the Karl Rove virus does cross the GOP/DEM barrier? (Lessig Blog)
Some ideas about the use of the Internet fall more into the “clever, but useless” category. This one appears to be more “too clever by half.”
From Bruce Schneier’s blog:
Hacking Thermostats
I have absolutely no doubt that there will be security flaws in remotely controllable thermostats, allowing hackers to seize control of them. Do this on a too-hot day, and you might even cause a large blackout.
Do we really need to have thermostats that are remotely controllable via the Internet? I don’t need my refrigerator to be “networked. either.
Several bloggers have posted on the article by Jonathan Chait on the Clintons’ campaigning style and tactics - including Don Surber, Dr. Sanity, and me (shameless self-plug!).
What bothers me about the article, but hasn’t been talked about yet, is that this is not just the developing disenchantment of the left with the Clintons.
It is also the chickens coming home to roost for the party of identity politics. You live by that, you die by it as well. The Democrats run the risk of fracturing the fragile coalition of identity groups that make up the party.
That is also, in part, why the Democrats fear John McCain’s possible nomination. He would split off a large chunk of that fragile coalition. He is also hard to hit on some of the identity politics issues.
The other candidates are far enough into the conservative realm, or are “caricaturizable” in one way or another as to be susceptible to identity politics tactics.
Oh, and back to Chait’s article.
He talks about the “egregious” characters with whom the Clintons’ associate. Unfortunately, his memory fails to find any but the admittedly felonious Marc Rich, and the turncoat Dick Morris.
The episode reminded me of the Clintons’ habit of surrounding themselves with the most egregious characters: Dick Morris, Marc Rich and so on.
What’s the matter, bad memory for Chinese names or other scandals? And what is the “egregiousness” of Dick Morris?
Chait can’t avoid pulling some of the same kind of “victim” tricks the Clintons have used throughout their campaigns:
It made me wonder: Were the conservatives right about Bill Clinton all along? Maybe not right to set up a perjury trap so they could impeach him, but right about the Clintons’ essential nature?
What was that famous line Marion Berry said about the woman who scored some crack for him? Maybe Bill would like to say that those Republican —– set him up.
Even Chait seems to move toward my not-so-irrational dislike of the Clintons:
They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power.
That’s what I consider the worst political crime.
Don Surber blogs about an opinion piece in the LA Times by Jonathan Chait (of New Republic notoriety). He adds a heavy dose of sarcastic commentary to quotes from Chait.
One quote,though caught my eye:
“Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee.” (from Chait’s column)
I’m not seized by an “irrational loathing” of Hillary. I just don’t trust her with the power of the Presidency. I think she lacks many of the traits necessary to carefully, persistently, and judiciously wield that power.
She scares me - she doesn’t drive me crazy.
Back to Surber’s piece - it’s worth the read.
I had thought to say “The Clintons’ Strategy,” but I think their latest efforts are just tactics - how they are going about achieving their strategy.
Neo-Neocon posts about the fickleness of the voting public. I’m in agreement that on a day-to-day basis they are very fickle. They know it doesn’t really count to answer a poll question, or “favor” or “oppose” a particular candidate. It’s one drop of rain, not the thunder burst of election day.
In the course of her post, she wonders about the behavior of the Clintons (don’t we all much of the time?). She speculates:
Or maybe they’ve decided to do a bad cop, good cop bit, with Bill as the bad cop.
That is exactly what they’ve done since Barrak Obama stunned them in Iowa. Hillary can use Bill to get Barrak off his message of hope and unity, without herself looking any the worse for it. If any of Bill’s mudslinging happens to stick to Obama, Hillary can use that “impromptu focus group result” to reshape her campaign and debate statements.
Admittedly, sometimes that blows up in her face, as in the two jiu jitsu moves she found herself the victim of: A Rezko picture with the Clintons pops up the day after she tries to smear Obama with him; and the “say anything” response to her Reagan smear. That last was aided by several bloggers noting that Bill used exactly the same tactic in 1992.
It very definitely is the “good cop - bad cop” tactic they’re using on Obama. Or should that be “bad cop - dirty cop?”
I read a post at Just One Minute about how a liberal felt that women needed to have a man to catapult them to leadership positions around the world (yes, you read that right). I found this lexical nugget:
Hillarity
The rest of the post is very good.
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