Ben's blog

Ben doesn't live here anymore

2009-07-24T00:08:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for me, I don't update this blog anymore.

So where do you find me? What's up with me?

I spend most of my time now in my job as an entertainment business reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A good place to follow my work is on our Company Town blog. I write for it regularly and also link to many of my print articles on it as well.

Or if you live in California, you can even subscribe to L.A. Times and read my stuff on newsprint. It's actually kinda cool in a retro sort of way.

If you follow my Twitter feed, I link to most of my articles and also post random thoughts and questions both professional and personal. I even sometimes do some reporting on Twitter. Because I'm a totally 21st century social media journalist 2.0.

If you know me at least a little bit, you can also become my Facebook friend.

I might occassionally update this post just in case people looking for me on whatever search engine is popular in the future (I still maintain Google is just a fad) find this blog, but no new personal blog posts. I do enough writing for the Times, not to mention Twittering. The last thing the world needs is for me to to write some more.

What I hope Obama's call to service will mean

2009-01-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

President Obama's call for responsibility and service alongside a government that does more today was extremely welcome, a sign of liberalism done right:

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

But a call to action is so very, very much stronger when accompanied by opportunities for action. Which is why I truly and sincerely hope that he'll be significantly expanding AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps and calling on young Americans to devote a year or two of their lives to one of those organizations, or the military. It's part of his "agenda" on the new whitehouse.gov (there's a whole section called "service") and to me it's the most important item in there.

I believe really passionately from having served in AmeriCorps that it's an example of government at its best: providing the infrastructure and organization for Americans to solve our problems together through service. It not only gets things done, but it instills many of the most important values democratic citizens need.

For me, the ideal would be mandatory, universal national service. We could do so much good in our country and around the world and bring our nation together in a way we haven't seen since World War II if every one of us shared the difficult, frustrating and rewarding experience of serving our nation.

That's not going to happen anytime soon, so at least I hope the new administration will fulfill its service agenda and that the new president will specifically call on people to join AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps or the military. Without those opportunities and calls to action, we end up with Obama at his worst: eloquent words expressing important values that result in nothing beyond people feeling better.

The greatest press release quote of all time

2009-01-02T20:52:00.001-08:00

Of all the executive quotes I have ever seen in a press release in my entire life, this is far and away the greatest. Nothing else even comes close. There needs to be some kind of awards ceremony for this work so that the folks at MTV can be properly honored.

The quote comes from a recent release the cable network issued announcing a new slate of reality TV shows from talents including Nick Lachey, Donald Trump and Rob Dyrdek. The quote comes from MTV Networks Music Group Entertainment President (phew!) Brian Graden:

This is a generation with the bravado and drive to reinvent the world, and the ingenuity to actually pull it off. These new series reflect Generation 'Why Not?', living, working and playing on their own terms, 'adventure capitalists' if you will, pursuing a variety of thrill seeking, 2.0, express-yourself enterprises."

There is nothing I can possibly add to that. Even though I am allegedly in the MTV demographic that is part of "Generation Why Not." I guess I am too busy with my thrill seeking 2.0 express-myself enterprises to think about it.

Two-thirds to raise taxes, but 50 percent-plus-one can take away marriage rights?

2008-11-07T16:42:00.001-08:00

Reading election returns this week, I realized something is screwy: A local proposition raising the sales tax to fund public transportation needed a two-thirds majority to pass, but a state constitutional amendment stripping marriage rights from gay couples passed with a simple majority. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Sullivan's Clinton attacks jump the shark

2008-03-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Even as an Obama voter (well, more of an anti-Hillary voter), I've found Andrew Sullivan's increasingly nasty screeds against Hillary and "the Clintons" to be over the top. But today he really jumped the shark.

This post, titled "Who the Clintons really are," is a link to a video clip from "Primary Colors," a fictional movie based on a fictional book about the Clintons. All it shows is what Joe Klein thinks of the Clintons. Which Sullivan is welcome to agree with, of course. But it hardly qualifies as evidence for Sullivan's charge that "They do and say what is in their best interests, period -and they have no idea how to behave otherwise."

Most disturbing by far is this line at the end of the post: "Wait till the end and, in Emma Thompson's brilliant performance, you get a glimpse of the sociopath beneath."

Really? Hillary Clinton is a sociopath??? She fits the medical definition of having "A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others and inability or unwillingness to conform to what are considered to be the norms of society?" What a way to stand up for the guy who's trying to change politics.

"9-1-1, What is your emergency?" "My doll is dying." "We'll be right there, sir."

2008-01-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm not the best candidate to enjoy "Lars and the Real Girl," a sickeningly sweet fantasy about a town full of people who have nothing else to do but enable a delusional loner's fantasy that a full-size doll is his girlfriend.

But, honestly, things take place in this movie that belie the basic rules of modern society. If you're making a film that takes place in the real world, how can you expect anyone to buy that when someone calls 9-1-1 because he believes his doll-girlfriend is dying, EMTs would attach a respirator and drive the doll to the hospital in an ambulance. Isn't that, like, a grossly irresponsible (not to mention expensive) use of medical resources? I'd love to see the insurance claim for that. And isn't it illegal to call 9-1-1 if you don't have an emergency involving a real human being?

Furthermore, and this is just a piece of advice from me to the women of the world: If you have a friend who is planning to date said delusional loner just as soon as his doll "dies," tell her to re-think the qualities she looks for in a man. That guy is probably not going to be the best life partner. Even if he's no longer dating the doll, he probably has a few more issues he needs to work out before he's ready to be in a relationship with a living breathing woman.

I know, I know, I'm a stickler for tiny little details. But I'm just saying.

Getting real about gridlock

2008-01-29T23:37:00.000-08:00

Two recent opinion pieces about how to overcome partisan gridlock, one by a respected ex-senator and one by a young blogger, are a clear illustration of the two modes of thinking on the issue. Unfortunately, only the assinine one is currently reflected in our political campaigns (especially a certain candidate of "hope" and "change"), while the intelligent and realistic one doesn't have anybody on board.

Sen. Bob Graham (whom, I should note, I like a lot for being wise enough to vote against the Iraq War resolution on the grounds that it would distract us from fighting Al Qaeda) is the author of the assinine piece in the Washington Post.

Here are his "steps" to fixing partisan gridlock, followed by a dose of reality:

-"Each presidential nominee should commit to appointing a truly bipartisan Cabinet that would include the most qualified people available, regardless of their party affiliation."

Unlike say, running FEMA, many cabinet positions aren't just about technical competence. A president should reasonably expect his or her cabinet will be made up of people who agree with his values and policy prescriptions. Should Hillary Clinton appoint an HHS secretary who doesn't believe in national healthcare? Should John McCain name a defense secretary who's against the Iraq War? The best they could do is moderates from the other party for some posts, and that won't make the hard core partisans feel better. I recall that Bill Clinton appointed a moderate Republican as his defense secretary and that didn't exactly make the late '90s a bipartisan panacea.

-"we would also press both major-party nominees to lay out specific strategies for reducing polarization and reaching bipartisan consensus on our agenda of national challenges."

Reduce partisanship by forcing candidates to describe how they would reduce partisanship. Brilliant!

-"Congress must restore and modernize the campaign finance reforms enacted after Watergate."

A fine idea, though how does this reduce partisanship? Doesn't that have to do with reducing favors owed to special interests?

-"The media must insist that future presidential debates each focus on a single issue."

Also a fine idea. And also nothing to do with reducing partisanship.

-Political parties must fundamentally reform the dysfunctional presidential primary system.

An excellent idea. But, ummmm, see my response to the last two. Are Iowa and New Hampshire voters more partisan than other states?

-"Our citizens must be educated to use their powers for effective participation in the political process."

You probably think I made that one up. But no. An ex-senator really wrote that.

Compare that to Ezra Klein's much more astute diagnosis in the L.A. Times this past Sunday, which directly takes on "fairy tale" (to borrow a phrase from someone who's been an ass recently) analyses like that of Sen. Graham:

Gridlock is not something the president of the United States can solve.... It happens live on C-SPAN every day of the week. It's a function of the rules of the Senate, where 40 senators can refuse to end debate on legislation and thus doom its chances of passage. Because of the undemocratic nature of the Senate, which gives Montana as many senators as California, those 40 senators can represent as little as 11.2% of the population.

But it's not up to the president. There are a variety of fixes for a filibuster-happy minority. The media, for example, could start accurately reporting the cause of the gridlock, shaming the relevant senators and increasing political pressure to compromise. The voters could eject politicians who refuse to compromise, laying down an electorally enforced preference for a functioning government. The Senate majority could change the rules, essentially eliminating the filibuster. Groups such as Unity '08 could arise and, rather than wasting everyone's time with idle fantasies of ever more dreamy executives, could campaign against Senate rules that are undemocratic and hostile to progress.

Klein hits the nail right on the head. Sure, a less partisan president than George W. Bush should be nice. But so long as a determined minority can have their way in the senate, how can we possibly expect there to be no gridlock?

My only gripe with Klein's analysis is that eliminating the filibuster doesn't really fix the problem. Sure, senators representing 11.2% of the population couldn't block legislation. But since you would only need 51 senators, instead of 60, to pass a bill, an even smaller minority than it takes now could pass deeply unpopular legislation.

The solution, obviously, is to fundamentally transform the senate some it better represents population. The fact that California gets as many senators as Wyoming is deeply offensive to the principle of one person, one vote. Obviously that's unlikely to ever happen, but it sure would be a better use of Unity '08's time and money than trying to elect a moderate Democrat just because he labels himself an independent.

The "Celebrity Rehab" - "Surreal Life" circle of Z-list celebrity life

2008-01-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

Here's the scary thing about VH1's "Celebrity Rehab," which I fully admit I enjoy watching: Two of the "characters," (which is what they call the people on this "reality show" on its website) were previously on "The Surreal Life." The rest of them besides Chyna and Brigitte Nielsen, let's be honest, certainly could have been on there, and probably will be in the future.

So in the case of Brigitte and Chyna, we have two people were on a TV show that implicitly encourages heavy drinking and drug use so that the "celebrities" will act as insane as possible on camera. Brigitte even admits on "Celebrity Rehab" that she was drunk the whole time she was on "The Surreal Life." You'd have to be to start a relationship with Flava Flav, wouldn't you?

So basically, first VH1 encourages z-list celebrities to get drunk or high for the sake of a TV show... and then it encourages them to get sober for the sake of a TV show. Possibly to sober them all up enough so they can appear on "The Surreal Life" again. Now that is what I call corporate synergy.

Talking God and such

2008-01-20T22:54:00.000-08:00

just a discussion in the comments

How dare David Simon write "The Wire" from his perspective? OR Why pundits chouldn't critique TV

2008-01-03T02:11:00.000-08:00

With all due respect to Matt Yglesias, if there's any worse role for a professional blogger-pundit, it's critiquing "The Wire" because its "vision of the bleak urban dystopia and its roots is counterproductive to advancing the values we hold dear."

Critique it as a TV show, sure. But "The Wire" is a super specific show about a specific place and specific institutions, filtered through a few people's (and especially one person, David Simon's) perspective. If you don't know a lot about Baltimore, urban poverty, the drug trade, police, etc., I don't think you're in any position to criticize the "vision" of the show.

However, I highly recommend reading Matt's post and then scrolling down to David Simon's very cogent response in the comments.

Yglesias' critique suffers from the same problem, though to a greater extent, as that of Mark Bowden, also in The Atlantic. As a former Baltimore Sun reporter, Bowden is in a better place to criticize the way the show portrays its subjects. Especially this season, when reporters and editors at the Sun are characters.

The thing is, I'm sure Bowden is right that David Simon is using the show to "exorcise some personal demons" and is in the process being unfair to some specific people at the Sun who will recognize themselves in the show. And Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson, whom Bowden quotes, may have some sort point when he says that the show has left out "the decent people... God-fearing, churchgoing, brave people who set themselves against the gangs and the addicts, often with remarkable heroism," though I personally think there are plenty of decent people on the show.

But honestly, my reaction is: Who cares? Nobody except those who worked with David Simon at the Sun are going to relate the newspaper characters in "The Wire" to real people. And nobody (in their right mind) thinks the "The Wire" is portraying every single type of person who lives in Baltimore. The characters may seem real, but they're fictional. And most of us know when we're watching a fictional TV show.

The problem is that Yglesias and Bowden take "The Wire" to task because its gets so many details right, but then isn't "realistic" enough to them in its overall scope or agenda. I was actually flabbergasted that Yglesias wrote "But part of what gives The Wire such great power is its creator's conviction, wrong though it is, that his tragic vision constitutes telling it like it is." Just as ridiculously, Bowden writes "This bleakness is Simon’s stamp on the show, and it suggests that his political passions ultimately trump his commitment to accuracy or evenhandedness."

Wrong. Any intelligent person recognizes that David Simon and his writers are human beings with opinions who choose what to include and what to exclude, which stories to tell and which to ignore. I write short comedy for TV and the Internet and articles about video games for newspapers and magazines, but even I know that "evenhandedness" makes for bad fiction and is just as impossible as writing a truly "objective" newspaper article.

I think inherent in this critique is an assumption that people will take "The Wire" as gospel. Like somehow people are going to start adopting David Simon's world view whole hog just because he has realistic slang. Don't worry guys: If I decide to become an urban reform advocate after watching "The Wire," I'll do a little of my own reporting first.

David Simon isn't shy about expressing his political views, such as in the aforementioned comment on Matt's post. If Matt Yglesias and Mark Bowden don't agree with his views, fine. By all means, use the show as a jumping off point for a debate. But criticizing "The Wire" and its creator because it/he has the audacity to be deadly accurate in the details while telling a story from a biased perspective is proof that when you create something as brilliant as "The Wire," the only complaint critics have left is that you didn't tell the story the way they would have if they were you.

TV's two best shows are back OR I am a demographic of one

2008-01-03T01:26:00.000-08:00

+

I am probably the only person in America to be super excited that both "Wife Swap" and "The Wire" are back on TV this week, but I'm not ashamed to say it: those are my two favorite currently airing shows.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on the first seven (of 10) episodes of the fifth and final season of "The Wire" and, once again, the show is tremendous. A few of the characters in the newsroom are a bit simplistic, but the plot is so compelling and develops in such compelling and powerful and, at times, hilarious ways that I hardly care. Most impressively, as always, "The Wire" manages to make some really powerful points about the way politics and business and just plain culture work in urban America without ever becoming didactic.

I'm excited that this may finally be the year "The Wire" gets decent ratings and maybe some Emmy love, given all the press it's getting. It also won't hurt that the main plot line involves a really amazing criminal issue that I could totally see drawing in the "Law and Order" and "CSI" crowd who would have found previous seasons too depressing.

As for "Wife Swap"... what can you say about a show that in its season premiere forced the mothers from the following two families to swap lives for a year?

-A woman with a 15 year-old daughter who has been competing in beauty pageants since she was 1 and never has to do a single chore, treats waitresses like crap, and has a decorated Christmas tree in her house all year long so that her parents can give her a new present every single day. The family eats out for every single meal and, most amazingly, Mom and Dad do their daughter's homework for her and aren't embarrassed to admit it. They even get the employees at their business to do some of their daughter's homework for her.

-A Quaker pastor who home schools her three daughters with a feminist-oriented curriculum and is seriously concerned because her middle daughter likes to wear make-up and wants to be a princess or a pop star.

Yes, it's formulaic and edited for maximum drama, not fairness, but it's still unbelievable that families like the first one even exist, let alone are so lacking in self-awareness that they would go on national TV. Seeing them interact is totally compelling. And while it's not "Frontline," it's hardly "Temptation Island" either. About half the time, families really do learn a few lessons and improve their lives. OK, I'm not as proud that I love it as "The Wire," but I'm definitely not embarrassed, even though most people who don't watch it probably think I should be.

Reason to give a second middle finger to the Iowa caucuses

2008-01-02T00:11:00.001-08:00

As if all the reasons I outlined below weren't enough to hate the Iowa caucuses, the New York Times just ran an excellent story about how they don't even work well for the people of Iowa:

Because the caucuses, held in the early evening, do not allow absentee voting, they tend to leave out nearly entire categories of voters: the infirm, soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that require evening duty...

“Just as nonrepresentative as Iowa is of the country, Iowa caucusgoers are nonrepresentative of Iowa as a whole,” said Samuel Issacharoff, who teaches election law at New York University.

And just as with everything else about our idiotic election system, there's no argument to be made in favor of the caucus that remotely justifies excluding soldiers and single parents and waiters. Here's the best anyone could muster for the Times:

“It’s magic to see people stand up and declare their support for a candidate, and it’s a community activity,” said Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.

So that's why we elect people the way we do in the United States? Because it's "magic?"

It's time we all tell Iowa and New Hampshire to f*ck off

2008-01-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

It's worth remembering as we move into the Iowa and New Hampshire caucus/primary in the next week how absurd and undemocratic the whole process is. To me, Iowa and New Hampshire always getting to vote first is similar to the Electoral College... I have never heard an argument in either institution's favor that wasn't preposterous on its face.

Taking a brief respite from horse race stories to acknowledge how insulting the first-in-the-nation caucus/primary are to the other 99% of us, the AP ran a story today noting that 53% of people think Iowa and New Hampshire have "too much influence on who wins the party nominations for president." (though I must admit I was surprised that 38% think it's "just right." and I'd be fascinated to know who, outside of people in IA and NH, are in the 6% who think it's "not enough").

The principle should be simple: one person, one vote. By always going first, the votes of people in Iowa and New Hampshire count more than everyone else's. It's just like the Electoral College, where the votes of people in smaller states count more than those of us in large states. Any argument in either institutions' favor is far outweighed by the fact that it contradicts the principle of "one person, one vote."

I am willing to grant the idea that having a few states go first, so candidates can introduce themselves and not have to compete solely in the national media, might make sense. But why does it have to always be NH and IA? This argument, from New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, is incredibly insulting:

"We have made it possible for the so-called unknown candidates to make their case without having millions of dollars in the bank. And in turn, we demand that candidates move beyond the rope line and scripted town hall meetings, and directly answer the hard questions from voters," he said. "As a result, the voters, the candidates and the political process all benefit from the New Hampshire primary."

That all seems fair, but why in the world can't people in any of the 48 other states do the same thing? Why can't we rotate which states go first every four years?

Are the rest of us less intelligence than the citizens of NH and IA? Less capable of taking politics seriously? Sure, it would be tougher to do retail politics in California or Texas, but over the process of a year, I'm sure the candidates could find a way to meet a lot of people. Any decline retail politics would be more than made up for by the benefit of everyone in America getting an equal chance to vote for their president.

Just as with the Electoral College, the arguments of those favoring it are transparently self interested and illogical. And, just as with the Electoral College, the short term incentives for everyone are to kowtow to the status quo. Unless and until there's a national movement by the other 48 states to insist the things change -- and no, everybody moving up their primaries in an endless game of chicken isn't a solution -- things will never change. Something akin to the national popular vote, which will hopefully some day end the Electoral College.

Regardless of who wins and loses in the next few weeks, I think it's really worth remembering how f-ed up the entire process is.

Pay $2,500 to meet that mysterious species... teenagers

2007-12-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

The LA Times yesterday published what I think must officially be the one millionth story on one of those idiotic "trend guru's," marketing mavens who get paid thousands of dollars by corporations to tell them what mysterious Gen Y'ers and X'ers think.

It's all the typical blather categorizing millions of diverse people born in the same 12 year chunk with some snazzy buzzwords. But I was particularly fascinated by this bit at the end of the article:

Yet the high point of the afternoon was a carefully culled panel of -- yes! -- authentic teenagers. There were largely kids from high schools and colleges across Los Angeles, guys like Jack, a gregarious 18-year-old who works at the clothing company Hollister, attends Beverly Hills High and owns 35 pairs of shoes. They were paid $100.

Almost all of them seemed at ease in their skins, as if they'd been asked 1,000 times before about the minutiae of their lives. And the audience members fired questions at them. What would they most like to do with their cellphones? What video games do they play?

These racially and economically diverse teenagers seem more assured than your average teenager lolling around the mall or MySpace. "Kids who agree to do panels are more poised than normal," allows Buckingham, though she does point out that kids today are more "poised than kids 10 years ago. Kids are more savvy, and more sophisticated, and grow up more quickly. I'm always amazed even if you go to Indiana or Wisconsin you hear a lot of the same things you do in Beverly Hills."

Still, the kids jazz the audience; it's like each marketer is finally able to hook up directly with the power source. One can begin to see how Buckingham gets some of her ideas about a whole generation with the attention span of gnats and the vulnerability of children who've been handed most everything by their doting parents.

Is anyone else as amazed as me that corporations pay $2,500 to attend a conference where they get to speak to real honest to goodness teenagers? Is it REALLY that hard to find a bunch of teenagers willing to talk about the stuff they like to buy? Don't most companies have a few employees with teenagers of their own? Or is that hard to go to a mall or high school sports game or whatever and just ask some kids questions? The idea of a few teenagers in the front of a room being barraged with questions by a bunch of marketing VPs would be beyond laughable... if I hadn't actually seen it myself at a conference once and almost lost my lunch.

Beyond the absurdity of paying thousands of dollars for the chance to hear some kids talk when, in my experience, they never seem to stop talking at every movie theater in America, there are two obvious problems here:

-Teenagers aren't idiots. They know what kind of stuff marketing folks want to hear and they know how to perform for that audience. Is there any chance at all that in front of this audience, a kid is going to say "actually, my cell phone isn't that important to me" or "I don't really care what brand of shoes I wear"?

-When the panel of teenagers is organized by a woman who makes her living by telling the world what teenagers want, what are the odds that any of the panelists she picks will disagree with her about anything?

Honestly, the more I learn about how the business world works, the less plausible I find the idea that capitalism is remotely rational.

Just how dumb is Tim Russert?

2007-12-29T23:26:00.000-08:00

I have always had a sense that a lot of Tim Russert's questions on "Meet the Press" were idiotic and more focused on the headling-getting "gotcha" than actual policy -- or even politics -- discussion. But it was eye opening to listen to a podcast in the car while Alicia and I were driving to her family's house for the holidays.

Though she's moderately interested in politics, she never watches or listens to "MTP," and she was literally horrified at the questions Russert was asking Ron Paul. Not that she agrees with Ron Paul on most issues, but even as a relative political neophyte she could see that Russert was trying to nail him on obviously preposterous grounds.

That motivated me to just skim the transcript, now that I'm home, and think for a second about just how idiotic some of these questions are:

-But if you had a flat tax, 30 percent consumption tax, that would be very, very punishing to the poor and middle class.

That might be an interesting point... if Ron Paul was running on a flat tax or a consmuption tax. But he's not. It's not on his campaign website, it doesn't come up in Google. As far as I can tell, Russert figured "Ron Paul must support either a flat tax or national sales tax, since all those other anti-tax kooks do." Which is why Russert looked like a total ass when Paul replied "Well, I know. That's why I don't want it."

-[after a broken up discussion about how Ron Paul inserts earmarks for his district into spending bills]If you were true to your philosophy, you would say no pork spending in my district... Well, when you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the, in the spending bills, then I think you'll be consistent.

That wouldn't be consistency. That would be idiocy. The inconsistency would be if he voted for big tax and spending bills. if he votes against the bill, but knows it's going to pass, why in the world shouldn't he make sure his district gets its fair share? Alicia was literally LOL at that one.

-You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.

This is maybe my favorite of the stupid questions Russert asked. And I don't think I could beat Ron Paul's own response: "Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?" But the best part is, Russert seemed to realize his question sounded idiotic when Paul responded that way, so he makes a pathetic attempt to clarify himself and make it sound like there is some contradiction with this follow-up:

-So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?

No, Tim, he wants to amend the unwritten part of the Constitution.

-[after Paul said he thought the Civil War was unnecessary] We'd still have slavery.

As Alicia pointed out, we all learned in middle school that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery (at least initially), it was over states' rights and keeping the country intact. And even if the Confederacy had successfully seceded, does anyone think it would still have slavery in the year 2007?

Which leads me to wonder... why does Tim Russert always finish his interviews by saying "Thanks for sharing your views" when he obviously isn't asking candidates to do that?

Paging Jonah Goldberg: Are conservatives "friendly communists?"

2007-12-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

For some reason, Brendan felt the need to poke fun at Jonah Goldberg's thoughtful new contribution to the public discourse, "Liberal Fascism," but I actually found it inspiring. In fact, I'm working on a new proposal that draws directly on his brilliant intellectual work. I'm hoping to submit it to Doubleday, which had was brave enough to publish Goldberg's groundbreaking book via its new "Up is Down -- arguments even a mentally retarded infant could see through" imprint.

These are just two paragraphs I wrote that might be good for a book jacket. But hopefully you'll get the gist:

Did you know that in the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx said he supported “personal freedom” and “independence” and that the state is used by certain interest groups to control and oppress people, not to allow freedom?

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s conservatives are totalitarian maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new communist order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern conservatism and classical communism shared the same intellectual roots.

PS Anyone else as amused as I am that Jonah Goldberg now has the #1 book in Amazon.com's fascism category, just slightly ahead of "Mein Kampf?"

The 10 year-old Karl Rove

2007-12-16T12:37:00.001-08:00

Now that Roger Ailes is busy running Fox News and Karl Rove has retired to the life of columnist and pundit, Republicans across the country are surely asking: Where's our next slimeball political operator who can drive our candidates to victory through blatant appeals to racism and fear? The Los Angeles Times appears to have found him -- a 10 year-old in Iowa:

It was an unusual question at the end of a long day: What, the fifth-grader asked Barack Obama, would you do as president if illegal immigrants staged a terrorist attack on the United States while you were pulling troops out of Iraq?

Quick, someone get this kid early admission to Patrick Henry University! I hope nobody else was planning to run for president of the national College Republicans between 2015 and 2019.

If he's smart, Tagg Romney is already signing this kid to an exclusive consulting contract for the 2020 election.

The most horrifying thing ever

2007-12-15T01:33:00.000-08:00

Not that a blog nobody reads is the place to note an outrageous injustice, but this article left me frothing in anger like nothing I've read all year (or at least nothing involving Bush administration foreign policy).

A family courthouse in the Bronx where the elevators are so regularly broken that people have to wait AN HOUR OR TWO to get up to the courtrooms (they can't use the stairs for security purposes). And it has been this way for A YEAR. And a spokesman for the city said "the elevator project was not behind schedule, but was taking a long time because it was complicated."

I have literally never heard of such a thing in my life. Can you imagine how quickly the elevators would get fixed if this was happening in a family courthouse in a middle class or upper class community? Or if it was an office building in mid-town Manhattan? People would be getting fired left and right if it wasn't fixed in a week. And deservedly so.

If the elevators really and truly can't get fixed for a year, they should have moved the entire family court. That's what any business would do.

I remember going to family court once many years ago and it was a miserable place full of people facing some of the most emotionally wrenching problems possible. The idea that on top of that people have the stress of a 2 hour-long wait in the cold, or the anxiety of missing a court date because you're waiting for an elevator, is unfathomable. The article notes that one woman missed her court date to try and get her daughter out of foster care while she was stuck in line and had to reschedule for TWO MONTHS LATER. Two months without your child because the elevators don't work?

If Mayor Bloomberg read that and has any conscience at all, he's demanding this get fixed one way or another by the end of the year. And if the City can't do it, paying for it himself.

A disturbing trend

2007-12-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

Two non-British people independently said "cheers" to me the other day, instead of "good bye" or "see you later" or any other non-pretentious farewell-type statement. I hope to God this is not becoming a trend, in L.A. or nationwide.

Tim Rutten's fundamental error on the CNN/YouTube debate

2007-12-03T00:21:00.000-08:00

Tim Rutten devotes an entire, vicious column in the LA Times to bashing CNN for alleged bias in the questions it selected for the recent Republican YouTube debate:

Unless we're going to believe that the self-selecting YouTube questioners were utterly different from the rest of American voters, it seems pretty clear that CNN ignored these complex -- and highly relevant concerns -- for an issue that served its ratings interests -- immigration -- or ones that made for moments of conventional television conflict, like gun control, which doesn't even show up in surveys of voters' concerns.

Well, why the hell wouldn't we think that "the self-selecting YouTube questioners were utterly different from the rest of American voters?" As I wrote on Friday, it's actually amazing to believe that any regular American voter would shoot, edit, and upload a question for a YouTube debate. How many people were aware and motivated enough to even watch the debate? About 1.5% of us (4.5 million people watched). How many people like to shoot and upload videos of themselves to YouTube? VERY few. So it's actually perfectly reasonable to assume that most of the questions submitted would be from partisan activists with an agenda to push and not representative of what most people think.

As I discovered over and over again at Spinsanity and in my life working in the media, it's always easy to throw around accusations of bias, but there are usually much more system reasons for journalistic faults (real or perceived).

Why is anyone shocked that YouTube debate questioners are plants?

2007-11-30T23:30:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd post uncritically to a Michelle Malkin post, but this brings up some very interesting issues.

No, not about the fact that CNN did a piss poor job of background checking those questioners, though it did. And no, not that CNN has a liberal bias, which I don't really think it does.

The issue it really raises is... Who has the time and motivation to submit a video for a YouTube debate? Mostly committed political activists looking to make a point, of course. It's the same as with any online poll: the results can't be trusted because a vocal minority will overwhelm an unmotivated majority. So it's no shocker that someone who works for a union is going to ask the candidates how they will make sure we "have safe toys in American again and keep jobs in America." Why wouldn't a union take the opportunity to try and raise the salience of an issue that works well for it?

Plus, these CNN/YouTube debates are premised on the idea that a broad cross section of Americans are into making and posting personal videos online. Totally untrue. The vast majority of content on YouTube is either pirated professional content, stupid videos made by teenagers, or low budget professional stuff (like mine!). Personal video diaries are, by and large, a media myth. Lonelygirl15 is phony, remember. (and that, btw, is why the much hyped new Web series Quarterlife, premised on the idea of 20-somethings who keep Web diaries, feels so fake).

Finally, don't forget the fact that very few people actually watch these early presidential debates. Most Americans, even those who vote in the primaries, probably didn't even know there was a YouTube debate.

To summarize:
-very few average people watch these debates or care about them
-very very few regular people actually make personal videos for youtube and could thus be expected to shoot a video of themselves asking the candidates a question
-in any survey open to anyone to answer on the Internet, we regularly find results skewed by an active and vocal minority.

So... we shouldn't be surprised that we don't get many "real" questions at a YouTube debate. Frankly, the idea that any regular people are going to take the time to shoot, edit, and upload a question that has a small chance of being asked at a debate that they probably wouldn't watch anyway is ludicrous.

I love the idea of letting citizens ask questions at debates. But if we're going to try an experiment like this again, can we please use some basic scientific methods to make sure we're starting with a pool that's actually representative of the population (or of Republican primary voters, or whatever group it is) BEFORE we start letting them submit questions? Can you imagine how mobilized the interest groups will be to get a question in if we have a similar YouTube debate next fall for the general election? It'll be a nightmare.

My first NPR story

2007-11-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to semi-regularly freelance some pieces for "The Business," a nationally syndicated NPR show done out of KCRW in Santa Monica, about videogames since I have, surprisingly, become something of a videogames expert. If anyone is wondering how annoying my voice is, or wants to find out more about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, go to this page and click "listen." My piece is right at about 20 minutes. I think it came out pretty well, mainly thanks to my awesome producers.

Andrew Sullivan: Down with affirmative action; Up with Obama because he's Black

2007-11-27T15:11:00.001-08:00

Andrew Sullivan seems to have a bit of schizophrenia when it comes to affirmative action. It's kind of like the opposite of liberals who support affirmative action, but hate Clarence Thomas.

Here he is today, in another example of his many denunciations of affirmative action:

[Affirmative action] asserts as an irrefutable fact that any racial discrepancies in college selection are a function of either college-imposed or societal racism. Once the left put the blank slate on the table, and actively supported racial discrimination as public policy as a consequence, they begged the question of whether they had the empirical data to back up their social engineering.

A quick google search also finds numerous other examples of Sullivan saying he's against affirmative action.

Which is all well and good. Except I'm not sure how it jibes with this point from his recent love letter to Barack Obama in the Atlantic Monthly:

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

Apparently, to Sullivan, the color of Barack Obama's skin and his ethnic background are a significant argument in favor of electing him president. Compare that to admitting an African-American into a selective college over a similarly qualified White student as part of an affirmative action policy. What's the difference?

Personally, I would guess that foreigners are much more concerned with how the next president will conduct our nation's foreign policy than what color their skin is. I highly doubt Condoleeza Rice would be a popular choice for president in the Muslim world.

But that's beside the point, I suppose. All I really wanted to say is that Andrew Sullivan should decide whether he supports Barack Obama purely on his merits, or if he supports affirmative action. He can't have it both ways.

Dane Cook's Disease

2007-10-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

A devastating new disease sweeping across America. Watch this sad, but informative, video, then find out more at this website.

Eric Alterman's new line of greeting cards

2007-10-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

There’s not much I can say about Brendan’s spat with Eric Alterman last week. I think both their words speak for themselves.

But something really cool has come out of it. Apparently a few other political blog readers and I weren’t the only ones who were paying attention. I’ve got a friend who works at American Greetings and apparently the executives there were so impressed by Alterman’s writing style that they are creating a whole new line of greeting cards based on him. My source told me they have a tentative name and marketing slogan:

AlterCards – For the pretentious ass who’s never wrong

Catchy, huh? The first AlterCards apparently won't come out until next year. But Alterman, who is serving as a consultant on the project, has already started to deliver sample text. My source got me a copy of the material they are using for the first card, which executives expect to be very popular amongst pretentious asses who are never wrong: Belated birthday wishes.

Apparently Alterman gave the American Greetings folks a letter that he recently sent to his grandmother to use as the basis for the card. Names and details will, of course, be left vague in the final version.

Compared to typical greeting cards, this is very long. But when you’re getting text from a writer of Eric Alterman’s stature, you hardly expect 10 words, do you?

---

Dear Grandmother,

I heard from a mutual friend that you woke up the other morning and decided it would be a good idea to join in Rush Limbaugh's campaign of vilification against Media Matters by complaining that I haven’t wished you a happy birthday. To someone who is familiar with me and my work, this claim is patently absurd. In my six books and many thousands of articles, columns and blog posts over the past twenty-five years, I have repeatedly argued against privatization of the Social Security and Medicare systems and other policies that would harm senior citizens such as yourself.

Not long ago I was attending a dinner party in Manhattan where the topic of aging came up over the third glass of an excellent pinot noir that I brought from my most recent trip to wine country. Though I am always reluctant to mention famous people I know, I was pressured to discuss my long acquaintanceship with the pre-eminent philosopher Richard Rorty, who had recently passed away. Dick faced the end of his life with grace and class, finding time to leave a few final marks of his brilliance on the world, such as a recommendation letter he wrote for me. You, of course, are hardly Dick Rorty, Grandmother. But my respect for the aged and interest in discussing your demographic with powerful pundits at a dinner party benefits your life much more than a mere card with the words “Happy Birthday!” that I could have bought for $1.59 at the local drug store chain, where the workers most likely don’t earn a living wage or have access to health insurance.

Given that I am just finishing my seventh book and continue to update my hugely popular blog Altercation, located at mediamatters.org/altercation, while still serving as a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where I write and edit the “Think Again” column, senior fellow (since 1985) at the World Policy Institute at The New School in New York, and a history consultant to HBO Films, I'd not be surprised if I may have forgotten your birthday, though this card is not an admission that I did.

However, in charging that I “forgot” your birthday, your cluelessness is aiding and abetting a campaign led by Limbaugh and others to delegitimize Media Matters and the careful work it does. One cannot depend on either the intelligence or the good will of those in the MSM and conservative media not to use your nonsense for the purposes of further manipulation and misrepresentation. Shame on you.

Best wishes to Grandpa.

Love,

Eric Alterman, PhD

Woody's first celebrity interview

2007-10-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

OK, it's someone who's on Fox late night on Saturdays. But it was still really cool to write, shoot, edit.

Worst campaign sales pitch ever

2007-10-01T15:21:00.001-07:00

A few hours ago I got a call from an Obama fund raiser asking if I would help to "restore hope" to our country by giving $150 or whatever I can afford. I was kind of curious to hear how the sales pitch would continue, so rather than just hang up, I explained that I don't want to give Senator Obama money because I support a different candidate. I didn't have a pen or keyboard in front of me so the following isn't verbatim, but I still found her canned response -- obviously listed under "what to say if the caller says s/he supports another candidate in the primary" -- very interesting:

That's OK, because if it turns out that he doesn't win the primary, Senator Obama plans to donate all of his remaining campaign funds to whoever is the Democratic party nominee. So your donation will not only help to restore hope, it will help ensure that the eventual Democratic nominee is elected.

First of all, does that work on anybody? I'm sure any losing candidate who has leftover campaign funds will donate them to other Democrats, quite possibly the presidential candidate, or else their own campaign for senate or governor or whatever. So if I want to support the Democrats, why wouldn't I give my money to the one I actually hope is the nominee? That's the worst logic I've ever heard to donate money to a candidate who isn't my first choice.

Secondly, I wonder how the millions of people who actually support Barack Obama would feel knowing that their candidate's sales pitch is: "Give money to me. If I don't use it, I'll pass it onto Hillary Clinton." He certainly hasn't announced that publicly before as far as I know.

Ironically, I think the only way anyone could convince me to donate to Obama at this point would be if he gave up on his policy of eschewing negative campaigning and convinced me that donating to him is the most effective way to stop Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination.

AmeriCorps*NCCC -- Heroes to the gulf coast, on the chopping block again in DC

2007-09-14T16:28:00.001-07:00

I was really sad to hear that AmeriCorps*NCCC, the national service program I served in in 2000 that I would credit as one of the most important experiences in my life, and which I believe passionately is one of the best uses of taxpayer money that exists, is once again in financial peril, with President Bush proposing, and the house agreeing, to slash the budget by 58% (for proper context, that's from $26 million to $11 million).

But this editorial made me very, very happy, though it's not surprising. Since Hurricane Katrina, AmeriCorps*NCCC has, quite correctly, been devoting most of its resources to recovery on the gulf coast. This is exactly the kind of work NCCC, with its small, energetic, mobile teams, is perfectly designed to do.

I also know that everybody who watches an AmeriCorps*NCCC team in action becomes a devoted fan of the program. That was true in my experience, and for every other team I heard about. How could you not love the program when you see 12 or so young people who are devoting a year of their lives to helping improve their country while making virtually no money and living in crappy conditions?

To quote my favorite part of the editorial from the South Mississippi Sun Herald:

Among the many who wear the name "hero" in our book of golden deeds performed here, the Americorps volunteers will forever have a place of honor in our memory - idealistic young people, and seniors also, who came here and lived in Spartan conditions for month after month, in military tents, going out day after day to help the people of South Mississippi pull themselves out of the debris and rebuild.

So there is some amazement, and perhaps a bit of controlled anger, to know that the House would so injudiciously cut this fine organization to the bone.

Perhaps those who control the budgets would fare better in the opinion of their countrymen if they came and served in this zone of extreme need as these fine Americorps volunteers have done. But absent such service, their next best step toward redemption would be to restore the funding.

I was also really thrilled to read that the one person in Congress pushing to expand the program, instead of cut it, is MS senator Thad Cochran. He's a conservative Republican, but it just goes to show that national service is hardly a liberal idea. It's using a very limited amount of federal resources to enable Americans to work together to improve America and, at the same time, develop an ethos of national unity and service. Who in their right mind would want to do anything but make such a program big enough to fit everybody who wants to join?

Huffington Post jumps the shark

2007-09-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

I've always avoided the Huffington Post because it seemed, based on my limited reading of it, to be a monument to the indulgence of the pretentious, condescending, simplistic Hollywood liberal. And yes, I realize that in some people could accuse me of being at least the last two words in that phrase, if not more. But there are many far far worse than me. I often meet them at parties, which sometimes leads me to pretend to be a conservative and argue in favor of banning gay marriage or the war in Iraq just because I know I could outargue these people from the right and it infuriates me that everyone is agreeing with each other based on simplistic and fucking stupid arguments. So I try to piss them off and in the process often end up embarrassing Alicia.

But I happened upon this HuffPost post by Matt Littman from a link on another site and I have to say, while there are probably worse ones I haven't see,n this seems like the apogee of embarassingly self-centered elite Hollywood liberalism on the site. The post is titled "Is Los Angeles In Permanent Decay?" a not entirely crazy question. But this is the money quote:

Angelenos have had a moment akin to when the American people saw George Bush flying over New Orleans in his helicopter, completely out of touch with reality.

What is the reason for this obviously preposterous and offensive comparison? Poor Matt Littman's power was out... for two days! And the people from the Department of Water and Power were rude/incompetent on the phone.

That obviously sucks. Especially since we've been suffering through a heat wave here in L.A. But to compare the situation to a city that was literally physically destroyed by a hurricane? And a government response that was so incompetent it left people literally dying from thirst, unsanitary conditions, violence, etc. and stuck in overcrowded shelters when they should have been evacuated? That's insane.

L.A. has more than its share of problems. But our city hasn't been physically destroyed and, while I'm sorry that the operators at DWP were rude to poor Matt Littman, basic services work 99% of the time.

Coming soon in the Huffington Post: "Why the service I received while eating in the Paramount commissary with Brad Grey is worse than the conditions in Darfur."

Biden's book vs. Bradley's book

2007-09-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't read a political book in a long while, but I decided to get back into the genre this summer as two of the men I respect most in recent American politics both released new books. They couldn't have been more different.

Bill Bradley's "The New American Story" is, to put it nicely, an unreadable pile of cr*p. It's a collection of incredibly bland analysis of the current state of American politics -- everybody's too partisan, Republicans are better organized than Democrats, our world is more interconnected than ever -- followed by unoriginal center-left policy ideas on issues like the environment, health care, education, etc. I actually agree with alot of what he has to say, but reading this book, I'm not surprised he got his ass whupped in the 2000 Democratic primary -- his style is so boring he makes Al Gore (circa-2000) look like Huey Long.

The worst are the anecdotes. Bradley's book is full of bile-inducing stories that are supposed to inspire people but would make any right thinking person want to vomit. Here are a couple of my "favorites"

[After taking some foreign visitors to the Jefferson Memorial, he runs into Supreme Court Justice Byron White showing the Memorial to some visitors of his own] The fact of a U.S. senator and a Supreme Court justice meeting on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, both proud of our national heritage and anxious to share it, gave me a good feeling about our country. In the presence of the great words spoken by our great leaders, we are reminded that America remains an unfinished and unrealized idea.

And here's Bill Bradley's story to inspire us as to why government needs to help the underprivileged:

A friend of mine told me about a mother and her nine-year old son who went to Washington, DC. They came out of a subway and there sat a homeless man begging for money. The little boy saw the man, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the money he had been saving over the last year to spend during the trip. He looked up at his mother, and she said that what he did was up to him. He gave the man half of what he'd saved. They walked around trhe corner and there sat three more homeless men begging. The boy looked sadly at his mother and said, "I don't have any more money." She said, "Take this as a lesson. There are some things in life that you can't do alone." This is what government is for -- to help us do together what we can't do by ourselves.

By the by, this story is obviously not true. No nine year-old saves money for a year to spend on a trip to Washington, DC and no mother speaks to a little kid that way. The fact that he printed it makes me worry that Bill Bradley is either a) a liar or b) incredibly gullible.

The other book, which I just finished, is Joe Biden's "Promises to Keep." Don't get me wrong -- this isn't Pulitzer Prize material. But it's refreshingly honest and completely readable. I feel like I learned a lot about Biden, a fair amount about the major issues he has been involved in, and even got a few good anecdotes about his life in politics.

While he does lay on the schmaltz about the lessons he learned from his father and grandfather a bit thick, Biden gives some fascinating insights into a number of issues, like the controversies over school busing in the '70s, the Bork Supreme Court hearings, the the U.S. interventions in the former Yugoslavia.

He also admits a lot of his own mistakes, like believing Jimmy Carter would be a great president and voting for the Iraq war (that chapter is titled, succinctly, "my mistake"). His story about running for president in 1988 is particularly compelling. Biden admits that he jumped into the race due to a combination of political consultants pressuring him and his own ego, and that it was a mistake from the start. The chapter about his decision to run is titled, ironically, "this can't hurt us" -- obviously not a good enough reason to run, and obviously not true after his campaign sunk under the weight of largely scurrilous accusations of plagiarism (accusations first made, I wasn't surprised to learn, by Maureen Dowd. Was this the first major triumph of her destructive style=substance form of analysis?).

Biden also weaves in details from his personal life rather well, from the well known death of his first wife and daughter soon after he was elected in '72 to his near-life-ending aneurysm just after he dropped out of the '88 race to the work it takes to raise a family while being a senator.

One other thing that occurred to me as I read it: Joe Biden has had two separate brain surgeries, so people should probably give him a break about the hair plugs. I doubt he would look better bald.

The The Minnesota bridge tragedy: Could it happen to ME?

2007-08-02T23:25:00.001-07:00

Is there any media trend more annoying than the need of local shows to capitalize on a tragedy somewhere else by asking "Could it happen here?"

On the one hand, I suppose anything that prompts the media to pay attention to an important issue, such as infrastructure safety, is a good thing. We all know it's a rarity that the media sheds light on a potential problem before it happens, especially resource-poor local media.

But I really hate the presumption that I, as a news consumer, only care about something that effects ME. Sure, four people are dead and 70 injured and dozens of others missing in a terrible tragedy. Maybe, just maybe, I can be convinced to care about what happened to them: who they are, how it happened, why it happened.

And if you're truly a local news show and you can't or don't think you should cover what happened in Minneapolis, then just don't. I will forgive you for ignoring a big national news story if you don't have anything to say. Surely something of interest happened in Los Angeles today.

Otherwise, let's just go to the opposite extreme. We need a media-savvy company to build a Web 2.0 application personalizing every major tragedy. I'd like to see an interactive map showing every bridge I personally drive over and how likely I am to die while driving over them. Bombing in Baghdad? How safe are all the buildings that Ben Fritz visits from terrorist attacks? Election coming up? Don't bother me with talk about rebuilding New Orleans and coverage for uninsured people and other issues that don't impact me. Give me a webpage that says what each candidate will do for a 29 year-old married white male living in Los Angeles with an annual imcome of $xxxxx (I admit it; I make five figures) and nothing else.

Somebody stop the New York Times

2007-07-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a rule that seems to work pretty well this year: If it's a page 1 (or top of the website) story in the New York Times about one of the leading presidential candidates, it's a completely worthless piece of pseudo-psychological bullshit that uses a few pieces of completely unrepresentative evidence to draw broad and unwarranted conclusions about that candidate's personality and psyche.

Does anybody out there think the letters they sent when they were a teenager tell us anything about what they are like as a middle-aged adult? It's ludicrous and it's embarassing to see in our nation's "paper of record."

But at least it's another good candidate for Brendan's contest.

PS What kind of a publicity-seeking dick releases to the press private letters a now-famous friend sent almost 40 years ago?

The lame debate over Michael Moore's "Sicko"

2007-07-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

My good friend Brendan Nyhan and I have staged a Spinsanity semi-reunion to write about "Sicko" and its critics. Initially, we expected to critique "Sicko's" factual errors just as we have Michael Moore's other work.

But we found out that "Sicko" gets all its fact pretty much right. Instead, we discovered we have a lot more to say about the mainstream media critiques of "Sicko" and what they tell us about the sad state of fact-checking amongst professional journalists and how that has allowed Moore to try to whitewash his record of frequent dishonesty. The introductory paragraphs are below and then you can read the whole thing over at Brendan's site:

The mainstream media has started fact-checking Michael Moore one movie too late.

As veteran fact-checkers of Michael Moore, we should be taking a victory lap in the wake of "Sicko." The liberal icon's latest film has been aggressively fact-checked by major outlets including CNN's Sanjay Gupta, the Associated Press, and USA Today.

However, the media has decided to pounce on Moore just when he seems to be addressing his problems with accuracy. As a result, they have little to say -- indeed, the weakness of the criticism makes Moore look thoughtful and careful with his facts by comparison.

Read the whole thing here.

Intelligence insulting L.A. Times story of the day

2007-07-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

My local paper does some fine journalism. But lately I've been noticing that many of the inner sections in the Sunday paper are a little light on quality content, to say the least.

Today's business section hits a new low. Here's the headline of the lead story:
Surfing before you fly can uncover best fare

And to think I've been wasting my time visiting my local travel agent every time I need to book a flight. Who knew?!

Coming next week: a fascinating feature on how e-mail can help you to communicate with your co-workers no matter where you are.

Living every angry Xbox 360 owner's dream

2007-07-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't wish the notorious red ring of death on anyone. Especially if, like me, the Xbox 360 isn't only your primary videogaming console, it's also your DVD player that you have hooked up to your surround sound stereo system.

But an abnormally high percentage (25%? 33%?) of Xbox 360's are experiencing this serious defect, which is why Microsoft took a $1 billion-plus write off and extended the 360 warranty to three years to correct the problem.

However, if it's going to happen, I have to say that my situation is ideal. One of my jobs is covering the videogame industry for Variety. My 360 broke down with the red ring of death tonight. Coincidentally, tomorrow is the day before the opening of the annual E3 videogame conference. In preparation, I will be interviewing both Peter Moore, corporate VP of Microsoft's interactive division, AND Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment & devices division.

Suddenly, I have a new line of questions I'm very eager to ask them.

I'm sure I'm not the first 360 owner who would like to ask Peter and Robbie a few questions the day after his or her console breaks down with the red ring of death. But I bet I'll be the first person ever to actually live that dream.

The funniest thing EVER

2007-07-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting to find this skit for as long as people have been pirating video online, and it's finally here.

If, like me, you were a political nerd in the early '90s at the same time that "Saturday Night Live" was in its Carvey-Hartman-Rock-Sweeney-Hooks-Farley prime, there is simply nothing as funny as their skit based on "The McLaughlin Group," led by Dana Carvey's over-the-top but still dead-on McLaughlin.

It is simultaneously a brilliant parody and also a devastating satire of everything that's wrong and ridiculous about American punditry.

Some of my favorite elements:

-Asking the panelists to judge something "on a scale of 1 to 14, with one being the lowest degree of likelihood and 14 being absolute metaphysical certitude." The answer? 6.5

-McLaughlin's evolving nicknames for Morton Kondracke as the show proceeds: "Mor-Kon," "Mor-Kon-Town," "Mor-Kon-Tine," "Mor-Kon-Town USA," and finally "Mor-teeny-tiny-table-top"

-McLaughlin asks "what number am I thinking of?" -- hilarious in and of itself -- and then when Eleanor Clift asks "It is between 1 and 100?" he replies "Don't skirt the issue!" That makes me lose it every time. F*cking brilliant.

The Hollywood liberal machine at work

2007-06-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm just finishing sorting all the email that arrived while I was away getting married and on my honeymoon, and this is one I really have to share with the world. It came from a relatively well known character actress -- someone you'd probably recognize if you saw, but unless you're a big film fan, I doubt you know her name.

Somehow, I got on her e-mail list for various liberal causes. They're always amusing, but this one is great. Basically, if you want to get on the phone and chat with presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, he's up for it. Hell, he'll even call you, to save you the long distance charges!

Dear Friends,

As you may know, I wholeheartedly support Congressman Dennis Kucinich for President of the United States in 2008.

After hearing all the candidates speak, and personally talking with the "top contenders", I now am committed doing everything I can to alert my friends, that if you have a moment to speak with Dennis, you will understand that because:

[reasons why Dennis Kucinich is great]

Dennis has asked me to give him phone numbers of my pals, so that he can make a personal call to you, in order to hear your concerns, and answer your questions. Forty years in politics, and being in touch with his feminine side, gives Dennis a distinct advantage to truly change direction in our beloved country...

If you are interested in participating in the 2008 elections, and wish to talk with Dennis personally, please send me one of your phone numbers, and I will pass it on to him.

For the record, while Kucinich is too liberal for my tastes, I think he's a respectable candidate who deserves to be taken seriously (unlike, say, Mike Gravel). But I tend to think it's not the best sign for a campaign when you've got enough time you can make personal phone calls to anybody thinking of supporting you (even if the offer only applies to Hollywood types who might be a little more useful in publicity and fund raising).

Also, while I hate to rain on the far left's parade, I'm thinking it's probably not the best idea to publicly advertise that a candidate is "in touch with his feminine side." Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the reality is that this campaign is not being run amongst feminist activists in 1970.

How long until there's a National Association for the Advancement of Rich Lacrosse Players?

2007-05-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

Like every reasonable person, I feel bad for the Duke lacrosse players unjustly accused of rape and their families. I think Mike Nifong should probably spend some time in prison. And I think the Durham County government probably owe them some kind of apology and recompense.

But this is insane. I saw an ad for the "Association for Truth and Fairness" on Brendan's blog and I almost lost my lunch. It's a non-profit created to pay off all the legal bills of the Duke lacrosse players. According to this article, it was founded by three ex-lacrosse players who now work as lawyers and as a CFO.

Look, it's unfair their parents had to pay millions in legal bills. And if they sue the county or state, I hope they win some money to pay them off. But of all the people unjustly accused of crimes in the United States who deserve support... who in their right mind is really going to donate money to help three rich white lacrosse players from Duke who got caught in a mess when trying to hire a working class black stripper to put on a show for them? There are people out there from poor families who spend decades in prison for a crime they didn't commit and only wish they could afford to have racked up millions in legal bills.

Please, if this case even remotely makes you want to do something about travesties in the American criminal justice system, give some money to the Innocence Project instead.

Why Joe Biden? Why?

2007-04-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the presidential candidate who so consistently says the smartest things (most recently here but most especially here) also keeps saying some of the dumbest things?

Maybe the cost of a candidate who speaks impressively and intelligently is someone who also has occasional verbal diarrhea. It's a cost I'd personally gladly pay to get a president who's actually really really qualified for a change, but there's almost no chance such a person could get through the modern media gauntlet.

As I think we demonstrated pretty well in All the President's Spin, the best media strategy for a modern president (or president wanna-be) is to tightly control everything he or she says. It's not very interesting for those of us who pay attention, but most of us don't pay that much attention. And we all know what kind of speech - impressive policy discussion vs. verbal gaffe - is going to generate the headlines and the late-night jokes from which those who don't pay much attention get their political information.

Dateline Hollywood fools another Anna Nicole-obsessed nation

2007-04-19T00:20:00.000-07:00

Dateline Hollywood fans know that we have had many great triumphs fooling stupid entertainment reporters into believing our obviously satirical stories. (If you don't know, Mike Schneider has a good summary here.)

Our latest accomplishment comes in a language I can't read (and can't find a reliable translation tool for on the Web). But I can read enough English words to tell that Finnish newspaper Italehti, which a DH reader told us is one of two Finnish national papers, picked up our report that Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern will star in a reality show re-make of '80s sitcom "My Two Dads" along with Danielynn (the late Anna Nicole's daughter).

To quote the idiots in Finland:
Dannielynnin isäehdokkaista Larry Birkhead ja Howard K. Stern aikovat Dateline Hollywood -sivuston mukaan muuttaa saman katon alle.

It's good to know that a lack of basic reporting skills and obsessive interest in Anna Nicole are a universal trait for entertainment journalists around the world.

Thank you to the British people for your generous donation to me

2007-04-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

This blog post is my official thanks to the people of the United Kingdom. Due to the policies of your publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation, I just made the easiest $80 of my life.

The BBC, I have discovered, has an unusual policy of paying those it interviews on-air. Most Americans would be surprised by this, since only tabloids like "Star" pay for interviews in the U.S. In my personal experience giving interviews in American media, I have always done it for my ego, for publicity, or just to be a nice guy.

But every few months, in my capacity as an "expert" on the entertainment industry, I get a call from the BBC asking me to comment. Sometimes I turn them down because the question is about some topic like the Eagles going back on tour that I know nothing about. But if I ever feel remotely qualified to talk, I do it. Why? They pay. And handsomely.

I just got my latest check, for about $80 (I don't have it in front of me, but it was just over $80, I recall). For what? An interview that lasted literally two minutes about Americans' reaction to the movie "300" and how I think it will perform overseas. Let's be generous and count every second of time that had something to do with the interview. There was a five minute phone call in which they asked me to do the interview and we discussed the topic. I spent about three minutes on hold waiting for the interview to start. And maybe one minute afterward giving somebody my address and Social Security number.

That's 11 minutes for over $80. Could be the easiest money I ever made in my life.

I'll be honest: I'm hoping nobody at the BBC reads this because I don't want the cash cow to end. But if I were a British citizen paying my taxes, I'd be a little peeved. (I just checked and it turns out the BBC World Service, on which I do my interviews, is funded by a separate government grant and not the $266 annual license fee every British citizen pays for their ad-free TV)

While it's nice to compensate experts for their time, it is, let's be honest, excessive. And for the record, while I'm tempted to blame this on the lack of commercial incentives, it can't be just that. I've been interviewed by NPR a few times and got nothing more than a "thank you" e-mail.

I guess I'll consider this my soul cleansing because I always feel a little guilty getting those checks that I honestly don't deserve. And now that it's done... give me a call, BBC. I'm saving for a house.

Looks out parents: Your teen might be listening to a blog!

2007-03-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

I'm convinced that one of the most appalling wastes of billions of taxpayer dollars per year is the ads from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. To anyone who has actually used or at least encountered illegal drugs, they're laughable, which is why they're of course ineffective.

But the worst are the ads "helping" (and I use the term generously) parents talk to their teens about drugs. They're the worst kind of clueless bureaucrat trying to be hip bullshit. I just heard a truly great one on the radio today.

"Hey," it starts. "I'm your kid's MP3 player." Your kid's MP3 player is, of course, Black and sounds really "street-wise." I could almost picture him break dancing while recording the ad.

Your kid's MP3 player then continues (and I'm paraphrasing from memory, of course): "Do you know what's on me? Your kids are listening to all sorts of stuff, like podcasts and blogs. And people are talking about all sorts of things on them. Like drugs."

OK, so.... could somebody please tell the Office of National Drug Control Policy that you can't LISTEN to a blog?

And that's of course holding aside the larger question of whether MP3 players are now such a big pro-drug influence on America's teens that we need federally funded ads telling parents to be wary of them.

From anti-drug ads to abstinence-only education to government agency websites for kids, there's nothing more embarassing than the federal government's ham-handed and ill-informed efforts to educate us.

Why I "pwn with style"

2007-03-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

I've never written an opinion piece for Variety before, but I just had to this week after reading the negative review of "300." It's not that I per se mind that many top critics trashed the movie, it's that they casually compared it to a video game... as if that's self-evidently a bad thing?!

Sure there are plenty of crappy video games, maybe even more than there are movies than books. But that's probably understandable given that it's only a 25(ish) year old art form, but it's already highly corporatized. That being said, there are lot of amazing video games that are clearly great art and outshine the vast majority of movies, like Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Resident Evil 4, Katamari Damacy, any Zelda game, etc. etc. Even Gears of War, despite its inane plot and non-stop violence, has amazingly well designed levels that impress me as artistic creations in their way.

Anyway, I'm really proud of this piece, so I've got to urge anyone who happens on this blog to check it out. Here's the key point:

For today's movie critics, videogames are the new MTV musicvideo, a shorthand insult for any movie deemed too heavy on effects and visual panache at the expense of plot and coherence.

Anyone who has spent much time playing videogames -- a category in which, it seems safe to assume, few established film critics fall -- knows the comparison is both artistically demeaning and substantively wrong.

There has been a lot of discussion about my article online, especially on videogame blogs. But this is my absolute favorite thing anyone has said. I may even want to have it inscribed on my gravestone. It's from the comments in response to John Davison's blog at 1up.com:

"This fritz guy. He pwns with style it seems, me likes him."

A Bubba Gump insider speaks!

2007-03-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

I have yet to receive an official response from the Bubba Gump company about their insane policy on ice in drinks, but in the comments to my previous post, I got a great insight into their policies from a former employee:

I once upon a time worked at the Times Square BGSC and I am ashamed to admit that I've been that server before. Luckily, the TimesSq branch got smart and started using different glasses for the "no ice" requests.

The BGSC corporation is insane... their policies are completely absurd... For most of the specialty drinks they "automatically" come with the glassware which adds $4-6 to a drink that is packed with ice TWICE while it's made. (Mind you the strongest drink from their "bar" is the Blue Hawaiian with less than an ounce and a half of alcohol)

I also love his or her PS at the end:

p.s. the memorabilia in the restaurants isn't the real stuff from the film (are you kidding? they would never let a restaurant that serves their food on a tray with a newspaper have the real stuff)

The whole sordid story from my Bubba Gump source "PocaRoja" is here.

QUESTIONS FOR THE BUBBA GUMP CORPORATION

2007-03-13T01:54:00.000-07:00

My dinner at Bubba Gump on Saturday raised some important questions. To wit: Who created your corporate policy on the amount of beverage you will put in a glass without ice? And how much money does this save your corporation per fiscal year?

First some background. On Saturday Alicia and I and some friends went to Universal CityWalk, an overpriced faux-downtown teeming with tourists that I would usually avoid like Ann Coulter infected with the bubonic plague, especially on a weekend. But I wanted to see "300" on an Imax and that was the only theater nearby playing it, so there we were.

Parking and lines are of course a nightmare so I wanted to get there early, which meant we had to have dinner there. Dining options at CityWalk are a range of overpriced chains with kitschy themes and hour-long waits.

We ended up at Bubba Gump, the restaurant based on the heart-warming movie "Forrest Gump," because seafood sounded OK and it wasn’t quite as ethically disturbing as an $18 hamburger at the Hard Rock Café.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Bubba Gump is a seafood chain that in the lobby has real-honest-to-goodness memorabilia from "Forrest Gump," like a genuine call sheet with Tom Hanks' name. Man was that exciting to see up close behind glass.

There’s not enough genuine call sheets from the movie to put around the tables, so instead they just have random pictures and pennants and shit on the walls, a la "Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag."

So we’re at the table, all is fine, and I decide to order something called a mango spritzer to drink. Hey, I'm gay that way. It’s a mix of mango and pineapple and orange juice and they charge $3.95. It probably costs them about 30 cents to make. But once you’re eating at Bubba Gump, you’ve given up questioning things like that. Or so I thought.

I ordered it without ice because I don’t like my drinks to get water-y.

Lo and behold, they bring it with ice. But that happens a lot. No problem. I just politely ask the busboy to bring it back without ice and he says OK.

Five minutes later, our waitress returns. The drink doesn’t have ice. But it's literally half full. That's correct. They took out the ice but didn’t full up the glass. And there was so much ice that I now have about half a glass of juice. For $3.95.

I asked where the rest of the juice was and she said they only left in as much as there would be with ice. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say and she left. This was now an intense topic of conversation at our table. Did the waitress hate me? Was this some insane directive from Bubba Gump headquarters? Whatever it was, it feels actively hostile for a waitress to bring you a drink you ordered half full and tell you that’s all you're getting.

So when she came back, I told her, as politely as I could, that I wasn't going to pay $3.95 for half a glass of juice. She then informed that she wished she could fill it up, but it’s against their policy to give more than there would be with ice. First she said it was because the liquor costs so much. We told her there is no liquor in a mango spritzer, but she refused to budge. Eventually, she agreed to take the drink away and take it off my bill, because on principle I'm just not paying $4 for half a fucking glass of juice.

But the insanity’s not over. Oh no. Then she brings our food, as I'm happily drinking water. And she says "What can I bring you to drink to set things right?"

Before I could think about how insane this was, I blurted out "Can I have the drink I ordered?" But I could see on her face that this was a no-go. She’d rather bring me another drink… FOR FREE… then give me the drink I ordered… FOR $4. Rather than discuss this insanity, I ordered lemonade and moved on with my life.

(Yes, the lemonade had ice, but the idea of bringing that up to the waitress almost made my head explode.)

I'm left very confused and even frightened by this incident. And there are several questions that I would love to ask senior executives at the Bubba Gump corporation that I simply cannot get out of my head. They are:

-Who exactly developed your policy on not filling up drinks when the customer asks for no ice? Was there a committee or was it just one person? Did you conduct any market research before adopting this policy? If so, are you aware that I have NEVER SEEN A SINGLE RESTAURANT THAT DOESN’T FILL UP THEIR GLASSES and I haven been ordering my drinks without ice since I was like 12.

-How much money does this policy save you? Have you ever measured it against the cost of your customers interpreting it as a near-hostile act when a waitress brings a half full glass? Or do you see this as akin to negotiating with terrorists: "If we give in once, everybody will start ordering their drinks without ice and our profit-per-drink will plummet!"

-How do your bartenders and servers measure the appropriate amount beverage to go into a glass when there's no ice? Is there a small line on the glass that I didn’t notice? Do you have measuring cups at the bar? Do you have a machine pour the drinks with the exact right amount of beverage and then have wait staff fill up the rest with ice?

-How much money do you lose when a customer returns a half full glass because they expect a full glass of mango spritzer for their $4? Is this really less than the cost of just filling up the glass all the way? Or, again, is this a matter of principle that can't be measured in dollars and cents?

-When a customer is angry about this policy, why do you then offer to give them a different free drink? You have now borne the expense of one and a half drinks (or, to be precise, one drink and half a glass of ice), as well as the cost and labor to serve two drinks and wash two glasses. I am not a CPA, but I am confident that this is less expensive than just giving me a full glass of mango spritzer, without ice, in the first place. I would ask if it's a matter of principle, but I also can't discern the principle. Unless the principle is: "Customers who won't take their half a glass and like it don't deserve their first choice drink."

On the plus side, as our relationship with our waitress soured following the mango spritzer incident, she stopped asking us obscure trivia questions about "Forrest Gump."

But still, the mystery about Bubba Gump corporate beverage policy remains…

Ironically, I think it's brains that Joe is short on

2007-03-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

My friend and Dateline Hollywood partner Gil made this photo for the site. But it's so awesome, and has as much to do with politics as entertainment, that I felt I had to share it with the world here as well. Truly, it's uncanny...

Does Dick Cheney even know what "irony" means?

2007-02-20T23:36:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I won't be the only person to point this out, but if only for the sake fo not making comparisons so easy for the journalists and historians, can't Dick Cheney avoid saying things like this?

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday the United States wants to finish its mission in Iraq and "return with honor," despite the war's growing unpopularity at home and doubts among U.S. allies.

And here's Richard Nixon on Jan. 23, 1973:

Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.

Of course, Dick Cheney is not a stupid man. So ultimately, I think this just goes to show that he truly doesn't give a shit what anybody thinks. He believes Nixon and Kissinger's strategy to prolong the Vietnam War so they could save face and try to put a positive spin on our loss (a.k.a. bring the nation "peace with honor") was the right choice, and he and Bush are pursuing the same strategy in Iraq. Great. Fucking great.

Piracy is in the eye of the beholder

2007-02-16T22:57:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't blogged in a long, long time, but this is a story that must be told...

This morning I'm at a press conference about a new anti-piracy study and task force featuring L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and various other government and business officials. As at most events decrying the evils of piracy, there's a wide array of pirated goods seized by law enforcement on display such as bootleg DVDs and CDs, counterfeit purses, shoes, watches, etc. They're out there for the cameras because, hey, the evenings news needs a good visual.

The event was held right outside of Staples Center, which for those of you not familiar with L.A. geography, is a big pedestrian area in the middle of downtown. So the Mayor or somebody else is talking about how awful piracy is, how it harms the Los Angeles economy and costs jobs and tax revenue, etc., etc., when I see a group of about a dozen tourists walk by. They're definitely Asian, probably Japanese.

They look at the goings-on for a minute, clearly unsure what's happening. Then they walk up to the counterfeit goods on the tables and start perusing... like they're SHOPPING. I seem to be the only one noticing this because everyone else's eyes are on the speakers in the press conference. The Japanese tourists look around, clearly expecting that somebody is going to tell them what the beautiful fake Chanel purse, or the DVD of "Norbit," costs. After a couple of minutes, they realize nobody is going to help them, and they walk away, obviously thinking that this is a poorly run counterfeit merchandise store.

Brilliant.

Local news' incompetence is Dateline Hollywood's gain

2006-12-05T22:55:00.000-08:00

I didn't think local news could surprise me any more with its incompetence but it has... and I'm thrilled.

WJZ, Baltimore's CBS affiliate, reported on Monday that Michael Richards showed up in blackface at a celebrity roast for Whoopi Goldberg. Boy does that guy have problems with racial sensitivity.

Their source? A little website called Dateline Hollywood. Yes, the satirical site I have been running for the past 3 years with my writing partner Gil. They mistook an insanely obvious piece of parody for real news and had their anchor read it... TWICE ... before apologizing on-air in the 11 o'clock news ("coming up at 11... what we got wrong at 5 and 6.")

Why am I so thrilled? Well, the publicity of course.

I'm quoted in the Reliable Sources column (second item) in today's Washington Post talking about the craziness (the Post reporter was the first person to tell me about it, so she actually quotes me yelling "get out!"). There was also a Baltimore Sun article (the #1 most e-mailed and #4 most viewed on the site) yesterday, a post in LA media blog LAOBserved.com, and hopefully more publicity to come.

God bless you, WJZ. I can only hope America's media will continue to hire obtuse, non-fact-checking reporters and producers in the future. They're the fuel that keeps satirical publications like Dateline Hollywood going.

Libertarian party, where are you when I need you?

2006-11-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

When I voted today, there was literally one candidate for Congress. No I don't mean one major party candidate. I mean one, period: the incumbent Democrat. Now East L.A. is obviously a very liberal area and any Republican would obviously be a sacrificial lamb. But none of the third parties, who always nominate sacrificial lambs, could offer up an alternative. C'mon libertarians... greens... peace and freedom party... where the hell are you? Honestly, if this wasn't a year when I wanted to register as many votes for Democrats in Congress as humanly possible in order to send a message to the President, I might have voted for someone besides Xavier Becerra (who I actually wanted to win) just to encourage competition in the future.

In other election news, Brendan seems to think that this ad featuring Rick Santorum and a bunch of WWE grapplers is maybe the worst ad of the year, but I thoroughly disagree. As far as ads for stick-up-the-ass anti-gay bigot Republicans go, I think it's kinda fun. It's certainly the most relaxed I have ever seen Santorum, which I'm sure is a quality he needs to project more.

If you want to see some truly bad ads, check out the ones on Dianne Feinstein's home page. The first one features ultra-awkward banter between the senator and her teenage granddaughter, and the second has laughably amateurish key framing of Feinstein supposedly in front of great California wilderness that she has fought to protect. Nothing fuels bad political ads like moderate incumbent Democrats who face no real opposition.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that on my ballot today, there was literally two pages, with about 20 candidates, running for various judgeships. (Most were "retention" votes where you vote "yes" or "no.") I skipped all of them since I obviously didn't have the time to research them all (the propositions were quite enough) and the very idea of voting for judges is ludicrous.

We take care of values and God will take care of the rest???

2006-10-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

If this is honestly the way that a significant number of voters in America think, then we have got such a serious cultural divide in this country that I can't even begin to imagine how to bridge it. I have even spent more time living and working with hard core Christians (when I was in AmeriCorps in the South) than a lot of liberals I know, but this comment pretty much floored me. From the LA Times:

Joe Hester, an accountant, said he would vote for Talent because the incumbent "supports family values and I think McCaskill is too liberal for our state…. I'm a strong Christian, and I believe if you take care of the values, God will take care of the rest."

How are you celebrating?

2006-10-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

Important news that just crossed my desk:

October is "National Cyber Security Awareness Month." I can't believe that it's 10 days in and I haven't done anything yet to mark the most important month on the calendar when it comes to security on the Interweb.

To find out how you can take part in this month-long celebration, whether you're a home user, business, organization, educator, or administrator, check out the online toolkit.

I myself am making a bold move to take part in National Cyber Security Awareness Month by following one of the tips for "home users" with this important announcement: benfritz.blogspot.com is officially endorsing National Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Also, don't forget to check out all the exciting events on the National Cyber Security Awareness Month Calendar. And since it's obviously a high profile, important holiday, you can submit your own events for the calendar to an aol.com e-mail address that has been set up for the occassion!

More straight talk from George W.

2006-09-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Brendan flags an all-time great George W. Bush quote today, though I have to admit I had a different reaction to it:

We are a nation at war. I wish I could report differently, but you need to have a President who sees the world the way it is, not the way somebody would hope it would be.

Brendan accurately points out that if Bush really sees the world the way it is, he sure doesn't tell us about it very often.

But here's my question. "We are a nation at war. I wish I could report differently..." Ummm, Mr. President, the main war most of our troops are fighting is one that you started and from which you refuse to withdraw. Perhaps those are wise decisions, but you obviously wish that we were at war, since you started one and you actively choose not to end it.

And then to say that you "see the world the way it is, not the way somebody would hope it to be." Wait, what was one of the primary reasons we invaded Iraq (especially now that we know there are no WMD and barely any connection to al qaeda)? What have you said on the topic? Oh, right: "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."

Why, it's almost like we're at war in Iraq because you look at the Middle East the way you "hope it would be," rather than "the way it is."

If I didn't know President Bush to be a consistently honest man, I would find this confusing.

Today's thoughtful contribution to the national political debate

2006-09-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

"I listen to my Democratic friends and I wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people." - House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH).

Black is white... day is night... free speech is censorship

2006-09-10T01:34:00.000-07:00

Scott Holleran at Box Office Mojo got so worked up that he wrote a commentary that has nothing to do with the box office. It's about the Democratic senators who complained to ABC/Disney about the "Path to 9/11" TV movie / made up history.

Like a lot of opinion-havers on the right, left, and middle, Holleran (who I'm guessing from his language is a libertarian) doesn't seem to understand what the word "censorship" means. He's upset, you see, about a letter that five Democratic senators (including the minority leader) wrote to Bob Iger asking that ABC not air "The Path to 9/11". He writes:

In a free society, government exists primarily to defend the nation against attack and protect individual rights and, to that end, it has a monopoly on force. That is precisely why the Democrats' demands are immoral. Any government communication calling for cancellation is censorship; the Democrats are state-sanctioned bullies.

If Disney deserves criticism, it is not for yanking the program if it comes to that—which it may—because, in this era of rule by force and intimidation, no business or individual can be expected to easily withstand the power of the welfare state with a gun. Of course, Disney should air the program—but a threat from fascist senators and ex-presidents is not to be taken lightly.

But let's quote the call to action in the letter: "We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic."

Holleran is completely wrong. The definition of "censor" is "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable" or "to suppress or delete as objectionable."

Are these senators supressing or deleting "The Path to 9/11," or examining it in order to do so? Obviously not. They're urging Bog Iger not to air it. Republican politicians regularly urge expectant mothers not to have abortions. Are they controlling women's bodies and thus violating their privacy rights? Duh. No.

Senators are, like the rest of us, citizens, and thanks to our constitutional right to free speech, we are allowed to urge corporations to do whatever we want: make better jeans, cut prices, or not air a program. And corporations are free to consider the request and follow it or not based on whatever criteria they choose.

Obviously, senators are a lot more likely to get attention due to their status. But what's wrong with this? There is a great history in our country of political leaders using the "bully pulpit" to push for change. Take President Kennedy's exhortation of citizens to "Ask what you can do for your country." By Holleran's logic, I guess this was the instituation of state-sponsored slavery.

If these senators use their power to strike back at Disney in some way, that is of course very wrong. And if they tried to use the government's power to stop "The Path to 9/11" from airing (i.e. actual censorship), that's obviously completely immoral, and would be struck down by any court in an instant.

But senators who take a stand on an issue aren't "fascist[s]." They're elected officials exercising leadership. And since they don't have an ounce of government power behind them, Bob Iger can (and likely will) feel free to ignore their letter.

Holleran says "every freedom-loving American must defend Disney's right to air ["The Path to 9/11.]" Which is great, but completely irrelevant. Everyone agrees Disney has the right to air it. The question is whether Disney should air it. Those who scream "censorship" are attacking a non-existent straw man to avoid engaging the actual issue at hand.

(On a lighter note, here's Dateline Hollywood's take on the issue: ABC 9/11 movie shows Clintons destroying World Trade Center.)

You know you're staying in a hipster hotel when...

2006-09-08T00:31:00.000-07:00

Well honestly the photo of the naked woman in the lobby should have been a good hint. As should the artsy photographs plastered on the doors of every room. But the real sign just came when I opened the mini-bar and found, next to the candy and pringles, an "intimacy kit" consisting of "two condoms, two obstetric towelettes, one package of lubricating jelly." I don't think those come standard at the Hyatt.

The cost, for those who are wondering how much to budget for unexpected sex on your next visit to a hipster hotel, is $6.

Lamest Hollywood story ever

2006-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

So I went to a meeting today with one of my agents at a big (but not the biggest) agency in town. I don't go there a lot, since agents are more into "rolling" the calls, as you may have heard. For a lower level client like me, that usually means a call on the cell phone during the walk from the urinal to the sink.

It's cool when I do go, since I get an agent's undivided attention for like 20 minutes. But there's one really bad part about visiting this particular agency: the parking. There seem to have enough parking spaces for all of the employees plus the many visitors who come by every day. So the agency's solution seems to be... make the parking spaces smaller.

My Toyota Matrix may be a little wider than a Ford Focus, but it's basically a normal size car. I swear, with the exception of the "large" spaces which are always full with SUVs, the "compact" size spaces (all the rest) are literally the width of a normal size car plus about 3". Which means if everybody parks perfectly and you happen to be skinny like me, you can just barely squeeze your body out the door. But inevitably somebody parks a little off and then everybody is off. Then the only remaining space when a visitor like me gets there at 11 AM is the most cramped space ever.

Today I managed to get my car into such a space thanks to a feat of precision driving I could probably never repeat, but it was literally the width of a Toyota Matrix plus half a centimeter. I could not open my doors at all. All I can say is, Thank God I have a hatchback.

Yes, I literally crawled over my backseat and out the hatchback. And when it came time to leave, I crawled back in the hatch. And let me tell you, closing a hatchback from the inside is a major pain in the ass. Who knew?

Yes, that's the glamorous life of a Hollywood power player like me.

Samuel L. Jackson + Woody = best birthday ever

2006-08-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

Want evidence of just how easy it is to get celebrities to talk to you when you have a camera and microphone? Check out what happened when we took Dateline Hollywood's clueless film critic (and now red carpet reporter) Woody Wittman to the premiere of "Snakes on a Plane":

We shot this on August 17, my birthday, and I have to say watching Woody interview Sam motherf*cking Jackson is one of the best birthday presents I ever got.

Dateline Hollywood combats anti-semitism... by Screech

2006-08-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

The latest blog to take a Dateline Hollywood story seriously and link to it as such: Anti-Semitism awareness blog. For our obviously satirical story about how Dustin "Screech" Diamond went on an anti-semitic rampage after the bank re-possessed his home.
I don't know if I should be proud... or ashamed.

(To read about the all-time greatest inadverdent hoax on Dateline Hollywood, see Franklin Avenue's account here)

Oh, and I decided I'm proud. Or at least amused.

Brian Unger... not Garrison Keillor

2006-08-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

Are you listening to the Unger Report?

While I have to start off with the giant caveat that Brian is a friend, I still want to non-objectively but truthfully say that Brian's weekly commentaries for NPR are pretty damned funny. Not in a godawful Garrison Keillor / "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" / "Car Talk" makes-you-want-to-stab-your-ears-out kind of quote-unquote "funny" that NPR listeners seem to enjoy on the weekend.

I'm talking actually smart funny stuff that someone who isn't 110 and doesn't have mugs from NPR pledge drives going back to 1979 in their cupboards can enjoy.

Last week's Unger Report, which wondered what the "good news" on former CNN reporter Daryn Kagan's new "no bad news" website might sound like, was a really good one. "The day after a drunk Mel Gibson blamed Jewish people for starting all the wars in the world," he reminds us, "CNN failed to report all the ethnic groups Gibson didn't blame. That was a good news day for the Mooti Mooti Aboriginal tribe of Australia. But CNN failed to report that news. As well as the bear whose habitat wasn't ruined by urban sprawl. Or the cat who looked at the tree and said: 'I'll climb that tree another day.'"

You can listen to it here. Or, better, yet, just podcast the Unger Report. Most of us aren't devotedly listening to NPR every Monday morning. So podcasting is the way to do it. Plus that way there's no chance you'll accidentally hear a promo for Garrison Keillor and drive yourself into a telephone pole just to make him shut up about fucking Lake Wobegon.

Why Joe Lieberman is like George W. Bush and Mickey Kaus

2006-08-10T13:14:00.001-07:00

Brendan has a great post today that came out of a conversation we had last night about how Joe Lieberman is annoying for the same reasons as Mickey Kaus. As Brendan writes, Liberman (and Kaus) "seems to spend his time criticizing liberals rather than going after the Republicans who have made a mess of the federal government. In short, he's still fighting the 'new'/'old' Democrat wars of the 1980s-1990s."

But not only does Joe Lieberman neglect to criticize George W. Bush, he's starting to talk like George Bush. He's specifically picking up one of Bush's worst, most anti-democratic, rhetorical tricks, one we criticized extensively in "All the President's Spin."

Here's Lieberman talking at his primary concession / independent campaign launch speech on Tuesday:

I am disappointed not just because I lost, but because the old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.

I expect that my opponent will continue to do in the general election what he has done in the primary … partisan polarizing instead of talking about how we can solve people's problems, insults instead of ideas. In other words, more of the same old partisan politics that has assailed Washington today.

This is a classic George W. Bush: accuse your opponent of engaging in "partisan polarization" because he disagrees with you. The definition of non-partisanship is of course, agreeing with Joe Lieberman or George W. Bush 100%.

Because Ned Lamont has substantive disagreements with Joe Lieberman -- especially on whether we should have invaded Iraq; how much the President deserves to be criticized for his poor conduct of the war; and whether we should set a timetable to pull out -- he is a partisan.

Bush does this all the time, especially in his first term when he often claiemd he wanted to "change the tone" in Washington. To quote page 114 of "All the President's Spin": "This formulation defined his own agenda as 'what's right for the people' and those who criticized him as 'acrimonious and bitter.' In practice, of course, 'changing the tone' is impossible unless one party simply gives in to the other. As Bush defined it, the standard would prohibit vigorous disagreement between parties -- the essence of democratic debate."

Joe Lieberman should just be honest about his substantive differences with Lamont and run on those. Lieberman is a centrist (right of center on national security, left of center on many domestic issues). So he should run as a centrist against Lamont the liberal. Then let the voters decide. Instead, he portrays his centrism as a holier-than-thou rising above the partisan fray. It's not only dishonest, but in an era when the Republican congressional leadership and President Bush have made have made bipartisanship as quaint as the Geneva Conventions, it's not very politically tenable. I suspect that's why the majority of Connecticut Democrats decided to lean to their left and vote for Lamont, rather than their right for Lieberman.

Update (2:30 PM PST): Wow it didn't take long for Lieberman to start copying even more of Bush's nasty spin tactics. Look what Mr. non-partisan said the very same day that authorities stopped a (seemingly) major terrorist plot:

“If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England,” Mr. Lieberman said at a campaign event at lunchtime in Waterbury, Conn. “It will strengthen them and they will strike again.”

News flash, Joe: It wasn't insurgents from Iraq who were planning to blow up those planes. It was, according to the NY Times, "mainly British-born Muslims some of Pakistani descent." I highly doubt our staying in or withdrawing from Iraq would deter such terrorists. There's certainly no evidence connecting the two.

Notice Joe didn't exactly say they were connected. He just said a withdrawal from Iraq "will be takent as a tremendous victory" by the alleged terrorists who were arrested today. Of course that could be true. Who knows what they would think. That's not factually wrong. It's just implying a connection where there's no evidence at all.

Why, it almost reminds me of George W. Bush's tendency to imply a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, even though there was no evidence linking the two, by saying things like "we know that after September the 11, Saddam Huseein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America."

Again, this is a nasty, dishonest, undemocratic rhetorical tactic President Bush uses all the time that we criticized at length in "All the President's Spin. Now that Connecticut Democrats have rejected him for being too close to W., Lieberman seems determined to prove them right by sinking to the President's level of spin.

Where The Long Tail comes up short

2006-08-07T02:08:00.000-07:00

Since everybody's talking about it on the blogs and it's a totally digital thing, I thought I'd weight in on "The Long Tail," the new book by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. Luckily, rather than have to come up with something original for this blog, I can link to my review that ran in Variety today. (outside the Variety.com subscription wall for your blogalicious pleasure)

In sum, I think Anderson nicely analyzes and summarizes the what, why, and how of the explosion of niche content on the Internet. But his attempt to analyze the business of creating hits, and argue that it is in decline, is completely unconvincing. It demonstrates a quite shallow understanding of how the modern entertainment industry works, in fact. Here's the "money quote," so to speak, from my review:

In a world where Grand Theft Auto sells millions of units, "American Idol" performances are available for download and you can watch "Pirates of the Caribbean" in the theater, on HBO, on DVD or on a PSP, Anderson seems to have it exactly wrong: Thanks to digital technology, more people are consuming more hits than ever -- on more platforms than ever.

My primary argument is in the review and I stand 100% behind it. But I also want to pile on a bit here, with something that he mentions in the book and again on his blog that really bothers me. This is Anderson's explanation on his blog for which hits will still prosper in the "long tail world" and which won't:

As I see it, there are essentially three kinds of hits, which we can call Type 1,2, and 3:

* "Top-down" hits created by the usual hit-making machine: major labels, major publishers, major studios, etc. Those fall into two categories:
o Type 1: Authentic hits: products that are excellent and resonate with a broad audience (think anything from Coldplay to the World Cup). These start big and stay big.
o Type 2: Synthetic hits: lame products that are marketed within an inch of their life, sucessfully getting lots of people to try them even though they're probably sorry they did. (think Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties). These start big but quickly plummet.
* Type 3: "Bottoms-up" hits, that rise on word-of-mouth and grassroots support. (think Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or March of the Penguins). These start small and get big.

I think Type 1 hits will continue to do well. Type 3 hits will do even better, since the web is the greatest word-of-mouth amplifier ever created. But Type 2 hits will suffer, as the consumers spread the word of their suckitude faster than ever.

How is this anything other than subjective, post-hoc reasoning? What objective way is there to say which movies are "synthetic hits" and which are "authentic?" To take an obvious example, most critics slammed "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," a corporately-created sequel based on a theme park ride, and Disney marketed it within an inch of its life. How in the world is that not the definition of "synthetic?" Yet it's the biggest hit of the year, despite the long tail.

I can guarantee you that if it was a flop and somebody asked Anderson about it, he would say it's a "synthetic hit" that no longer prospers in the long tail world. Nonesense. There have been "authentic" hits and "authentic" flops and "synthetic" hits and "synthetic" flops since the entertainment industry began and there's absolutely zero evidence that the long tail has changed that one iota.

Allow myself to promote myself

2006-07-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

I try to minimize the self-promotion on here. But I realy do feel like we've got some of our best content in a while on Dateline Hollywood this week, so I thought I'd provide links to all of the fresh showbiz-satirizing goodness on Dateline Hollywood this week...

-Woody reviews Miami Vice: Our weekly video review from clueless critic Woody Wittman this week focuses on the new action movie from controversial documentarian Michael Moore.

-GIBSON OPTIONS ANTI-SEMITIC TIRADE FOR NEXT FILM

-PRODUCTION BEGINS ON PAM ANDERSON - KID ROCK SEX VIDEO

-NEW MAGAZINE: 'FORMER BOY BAND MEMBERS FINALLY COME OUT WEEKLY'

-BARTH FROM 'YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TELEVISION' GETS NEW SERIES

The last one may be my personal favorite, if only because I went onto YouTube and did a lot of "research" on YCDTOTV (aka watching old pirated episodes) that brought back a flood of memories from my too-much-TV-watching youth. That show was really surprisingly sophisticated for an '80s kids TV series. I had forgotten how it was full of meta-commentary on itself. Who knew Nickelodeon was a post-modern programming pioneer?

Instapundit hackery

2006-07-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

If there was any doubt left that Instapundit is a complete shill for the Bush administration when it comes to defense related issues and especially the war in Iraq -- he obviously isn't an administration mouthpiece on issues like gay marriage, stem cells, domestic spending -- I think this recent post seals the deal:

THIS IS INTERESTING: "Half of Americans now say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003 -- up from 36 percent last year, a Harris poll finds. Pollsters deemed the increase both 'substantial' and 'surprising' in light of persistent press reports to the contrary in recent years."

Apparently, trust in "persistent press reports" isn't what it used to be.

Let's get this straight. Half of Americans think that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, an assertion that is wrong. But the fact that half the country is apparently unaware that the Bush administration's primary (no, not only, as Instapundit constantly reminds us) justification for invading Iraq turned out to be wrong isn't the interesting part of the story???

I read this earlier today in a post on Brendan's blog and clicked through to the Washington Times story that both Brendan and Instapundit link to. I was dismayed, if not amazed, to see the GOP spin-disseminating Washington Times never assert directly that there were no WMD in Iraq, instead using the weasel phrase that there have been "persistent press reports to the contrary in recent years."

This phrase is obviously just the WT's way of getting around having to assert that Bush was wrong about WMD. But then Instapundit, amazingly, picks up on that phrase and uses it as the main peg of his analysis. The issue, you see, is not that half the country believes that the disproven justification the Bush Administration used to (mis)lead us into war is true. The issue is that people are losing credibility in the "mainstream media." (probably Instapundit's #1 favorite issue)

That, of course, is meant to get the reader thinking about the media's failures rather than just how effective the Bush administration PR campaign supporting the Iraq war has been.

Coming soon on Instapundit: Why growing public concern over the Bush administration's use of torture is a sign that the media is pro-terrorism

Why raising the gas tax is a terrible idea

2006-07-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

This Los Angeles Times story should be required reading for the elites who want to deal with our Middle East / energy problems by hiking the federal gas tax.

As should be obvious but this story spells out in detail, high gasoline prices can be economically devasting for working- and middle-class people with long commutes. Here in L.A., for instance, a gallon of gas has been hovering between $3 and $3.50 a gallon for almost a year. (Back when gas was $1.50, I probably would have been amenable to a reasonable hike in the tax)

It's not too big a deal for people like me and Alicia, who live in the middle of the city and both have a commute of under 5 miles to work. But for middle class families who, in order to afford a house, live 50 or 100 miles away from their job -- you have to go well outside of Los Angeles to find a decent house for under $500,000 -- it's a betrayal. I understand the arguments about lowering demand for oil and, thus, reducing our energy dependence on the middle east. But this can't be the way to do it. For better or worse, millions of people organized their lives around the idea that they could afford to commute their job and have a house -- the basis of the American dream. And then there are people who live in rural areas and literally can't get anywhere without driving a long way.

How to deal with the sky high (compared to what they were just 2 years ago) gas prices currently set by the market is a whole separate issue. But for the government to purposely make gas $1 more expensive is grossly unfair.

It's no coincidence that it's elite, urban dwelling political opinion-havers like Thomas Friedman and Andrew Sullivan who support high gas taxes. They are in major cities with good public transportation. Most middle class families can't afford to live in safe neighborhoods with good public schools in cities like New York and D.C. Thus, they commute. And need gas.

And yes, I know there are proposals to have some sort of tax rebate for lower income people. But I don't believe that would work our fairly for everyone and it would either be incredibly inefficient or corrupt. The last thing we need to enact is more complicated social engineering via the tax code.

I'm all for reducing our dependence on Middle East oil for the obvious reasons. But the way to do that is to make cars more efficient by raising minimum mileage standards, investing in alternative energy, building better public transportation, etc. Until you offer those kinds of positive alternatives, you can't go changing the rules on middle class families.

Andrew Sullivan sees the light

2006-07-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Andrew Sullivan for coming around to what I would call the light. Or, more precisely, for finally, in mid-2006, echoing the argument that Brendan, Bryan and I formed from 2001 through 2004 on Spinsanity and wrote as a book-length argument in 2004:

In the last few years, I have gone from lionizing this president's courage and fortitude to being dismayed at his incompetence and now to being resigned to mistrusting every word he speaks. I have never hated him. But now I can see, at least, that he is a liar on some of the gravest issues before the country. He doesn't trust us with the truth. Some lies, to be sure, are inevitable - even necessary - in wartime. But when you're lying not to keep the enemy off-balance, but to maximize your own political fortunes at home, you forfeit the respect of people who would otherwise support you - and the important battle you have been tasked to wage.

Incompetence aside, this President has indeed been misleading, deceiving, and dissembling to (or, to put it more bluntly, "lying to") America on most major issues since he took office. Most egregiously, of course, in the case of the Iraq War. That was the argument of All the President's Spin and I think the evidence has only continued to pile up since publication.

And Sulivan is most precisely right when he points out that Bush's dishonesty forfeits him the support of people who would otherwise respect him. As we said endlessly in the book and on the site, this is not a partisan issue. You can substantively support all of President Bush's policies, yet you still should be appalled by his disdain for honest democratic debate.

It's sad that more journalists like Sullivan didn't pick up on this fact years earlier, but I still welcome him to the truth. And I mean that in all honesty. I really do hope he'll continue to analyze the devastating impact that George W. Bush's use of manipulative PR tactics to deceive the nation for his own short-term political gain has wrought.

Finally a fun summer tentpole

2006-07-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Though I hate to think of myself as a curmudgeon, I have to admit that it's rare I can drop any critical stance and just have fun at a summer tentpole. Whether it's "Superman Returns," "M:I:3," "Spider-Man 2," or any of the "X-Men" films, I always end up thinking they're just not very good movies and I don't enjoy myself much.

The only summer tentpole I thoroughly enjoyed last year was "Batman Begins," but virtually everyone with any intelligence admits that that was a just plain excellent movie, regardless of its big budget and franchise aspirations.

Many people say I don't know how to just have fun at the movies, but I really don't think that's true. I'll have fun if the movie is fun, and not so actively bad that I can't ignore the faults.

I also honestly think that a lot of summer movies actually aren't much fun because they don't have enough action. Look at "Superman Returns" or "X-Men: the Last Stand" or "M:I:3" or "Fantastic Four." Those movies actually only have 2 or 3 set pieces each. Unless you have a great plot, that simply isn't enough.

That's why I'm very happy to report that I had a lot of fun at "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." Yes, the plot is unnecessarily convoluted and at at least one point, doesn't make any sense. And no, it is not about anything at all besides characters trying to get stuff they want. But the set pieces are frequent and spectacular, the performances are all great (with one notable exception who has become a star despite a total lack of talent), the score is rousing, the effects impressive, and the characters are set up to play off each other really well. I particularly appreciated that the protagonists don't get along and are often at cross-purposes. That's unusual for a studio tentpole (especially from Disney) and made the movie even better.

So yes, I like fun summer movies. When they're fun. And "Pirates" is. I should note that Alicia didn't enjoy it, even though she loved the first one. But then she thought "Superman" was perfectly fine. I should probably dump her.

Not getting called for jury duty is not an excuse to not work

2006-06-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

I'm on call for jury duty this week and so I had occassion to carefully read the "reporting instructions" to jurors in the form I got. Perhaps not surprisingly, there was one very funny, but sad, "instruction" on the form that I feel the need to share. As part of an ongoing series on this blog presenting amusing facts or public statements without comment, I'll simply quote from the "reporting instructions" on my jury duty summons and let you make of it what you will.

I'll just note that in L.A., when you're on call for jury duty, you have to phone in every night for a week to find out if they need you to report the next day.
The Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles has apparently found it necessary to include this in the instructions for potential jurors:

"You must report to your work place unless you have been instructed to report for service."

Cyberliberties meets civil liberties

2006-06-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't get around to blogging about this last week when I was busy "guest hosting" another blog for pay, but I can't let this week old BoingBoing post go by without comment.

I have to admit up front that I feel kind of bad poking fun at BB, however gently I'm doing it. I really like the blog, one of the editors is a friend of mine, and I often agree with the site's pro-"cyberliberties" political leaning.

But it's not surprising that a political movement (and associated blog) focused on the rights of consumers of digital media (surely one of the most oppressed groups in our nation's history) might be somewhat elitist, however unintentionally and innocently, as this post hilariously demonstrated:

Tom spotted this DC license plate, reading BLK DRM. He thinks it's an anti-DRM lobbyist's plate, which is plausible, though with the acronym soup in Washington, it could stand for just about anything. Link (Thanks, Tom)

OK, BB, I'm with you so far. That's kind of weird, but interesting. Oh, wait. Some readers have written in with an... alternative interpretation of the license plate:

Update: Thanks to everyone who wrote to say that this probably stands for "Black Dream."

There really is something funny about the idea that there's a population of liberal, or at least libertarian, political activists who see a license plate that says "BLK DRM" in Washington, DC, which probably has the highest proportation of African-Americans of any area with its own license plate, and immediately think of blocking DRM, rather than the "Black Dream." (I fully admit I didn't immediately know it meant "Black Dream" either, though I didn't think about it for very long)

Copied by everyone: the ultimate flattery

2006-06-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

If the ultimate flattery for a writer is to be copied, then it has been a good two days for me.

My article yesterday in Daily Variety about Apple negotiating with studios to start selling movies on iTunes has been picked up by most major publications and websites. According to Google News, there are 139 articles related to the topic, all of which were spurred by me. So that's kind of cool.

But of course the ultimate honor for a journalist is to be ripped off by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the nation's top two papers. The NYT especially has a reputation for taking news reported by others and presenting it as its own story. But since both papers did note that the news was first reported in Variety, I honestly can't complain.

It's much much much better than when I broke the news that ABC.com would stream TV shows for free, but it didn't really get much play in the paper, nobody noticed, and then the Wall Street Journal allegedly "broke" the news in a page 1 story months later. That actually annoyed me.

Jonah Goldberg thinks we're retarded

2006-06-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg devoted his column in the LA Times today to promoting his National Review buddy Ramesh Ponnuru's book "The Party of Death." A little unseemly, but hey, not nearly as unseemly as anything written by Joel Stein, so I'm willing to roll.

I have no particular beef with most of it, but this part is amazing:

Some people are also vexed by the word "party," thinking it explicitly means Democrats. It doesn't (though it certainly includes many). Ponnuru uses the term "party of death" the way the Nation uses "the war party" to describe hawks everywhere.

Jonah, baby, did you just ask Ramesh what the book is about and not bother to look at the cover? Or do you just think that we readers are too stupid to look at the book ourselves? For the record, here's the subtitle of "The Party of Death":

The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life

It's not "The Democrats, the moderate Republicans, the libertarians, the Pro-Choice Independents, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life." Just "the Democrats." So maybe it's not so crazy for those associated with the Democratic party, or those of us who just value a political discourse that doesn't involve labeling one of the two major political parties pro-"death," to be a wee bit offended.

DumbAssRepublicansSayWhat?

2006-06-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

Just how immature can the leaders of the House of Representatives be? About as mature as your average middle school boy, apparently:

The House later this week is to debate the resolution, which declares the United States will prevail in the war on terror.

Obviously a very controversial and important issue for Congress to weigh in on. I wonder whether my Congressman thinks we will win or lose in the war on terror? I can't wait to see how he votes.

But wait... there's a twist. Shocking! According to Reuters:

Further down, it said former Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein and his regime "supported terrorists," and said terrorists have proclaimed Iraq the "central front" in their war against those opposed to their ideology.

The resolution also declared it is not in the national interest to "set an arbitrary date to withdraw or redeploy" U.S. forces from Iraq, and said the United States is committed to "completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq."

So basically you either vote in favor of the Republican policy in Iraq and then get accused of being a hypocrite if you criticize it in the future... or you vote against a resolution proclaiming the U.S. will win the war on terror. Either way, you give your Republican opponent in the upcoming election a great tool against you.

This is basically the adult equivalent of that joke we used to tell in middle school where you go up to somebody and say "SphinctersSayWhat" really fast in hopes of getting him to say "what" and admit he's a sphincter.

I'll send $100 to the first journalist who sends me a tape or official transcript of him going up to House Majority Leader John Boehner, who says the debate on this resolution "will be about the fundamental question: Are we going to confront the threat of terrorism and defeat it, or will we relent and retreat in the hopes that it just goes away?" and asking "SphinctersSaysWhat?"

Hell freezes over / I praise Tom Delay

2006-06-09T01:39:00.000-07:00

Despite being the slimest of the slimy, the dirtiest of the dirty, and the corruptest of the corrupt (??), Tom Delay made some very valid points in his farewell speech today that I think are worth noting.

Essentially, he pointed out that partisanship is not in and of itself a bad thing. In a democracy, it's necessary. Politicians have to disagree, sometimes fiercely, because Americans disagree. As the Hammer says pretty accurately, "You show me a nation without partisanship, and I’ll show you a tyranny."

And a big part of healthy partisanship is building strong political parties. To a certain extent, the Phoenix-like rise of Congressional Republicans in 1994 represents that.

Now, does that excuse turning K Street into a wing of the Republican party, rather than an (already dirty) way for businesses to represent their interests in Washington DC? Or running Congress in such a way as to almost completely exclude Democrats from all proceses up until the final vote? Leading the fight to break national precedent by redistricting in Texas in an off-year purely for partisan advantage?

Of course not. But still, I found much to agree with in the following words, minus the petty swipes against Democrats/liberals:

In preparing for today, I found that it is customary in speeches such as these to reminisce about the "good old days" of political harmony and across-the-aisle camaraderie, and to lament the bitter, divisive partisan rancor that supposedly now weakens our democracy.

I can’t do that. Because partisanship, Mr. Speaker — properly understood — is not a symptom of a democracy’s weakness, but of its health and strength — especially from the perspective of a political conservative.

Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy — and a proud one with a great tradition in this country — with a voracious appetite for growth. In any time or place, on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? "More." More government, more taxation, more control over people’s lives and decisions and wallets.

If conservatives don’t stand up to liberalism, no one will! And for a long time around here… almost no one did.

Indeed, the common lament over the rise in political partisanship is often nothing more than a veiled complaint instead about the rise of political conservatism. I should add here that I do not begrudge liberals their nostalgia for the days of a timid, docile, and permanent Republican minority. If we Republicans had ever enjoyed the same luxury over the last twelve years… Heck, I’d be nostalgic, too!

Had liberals not fought us tooth and nail over tax cuts and budget cuts and energy and Iraq and partial-birth abortion, those of us on this side of the aisle can only imagine all the additional things we could have accomplished. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, they didn’t agree with us.

So — to their credit — they stood up to us. They argued with us. And they did so honorably, on behalf of more than 100 million people, just like we did against President Clinton, and they did against President Reagan.

...

The point is: we disagree. On first principles, Mr. Speaker, we disagree. And so we debate — often loudly, and often in vain — to convince our opponents and the American people of our point of view. We debate here on the House floor. We debate in committees. We debate on television, and on radio, and on the Internet, and in the newspapers. And then every two years, we have a HUGE debate… and then in November we see who won.

That is not rancor.

That is democracy!

You show me a nation without partisanship, and I’ll show you a tyranny.

For all its faults, it is partisanship — based on core principles — that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today — or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican and Democrat, however unjust — all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences… except for all the others.

Now, politics demands compromise, Mr. Speaker, and even the most partisan among us have to understand that. But we must never forget that compromise and bipartisanship are means, not ends, and are properly employed only in the service of higher principles.

It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first-principle. For true statesmen, Mr. Speaker, are not defined by what they compromise, but what they don’t.

OK I can't end on too positive a note. Tom Delay's a power hungry, corrupt hack whose career is a testament to un-conservative values. There, now I feel better.

Little old me on IMDB

2006-06-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have heard it said by numerous acquaintances that if they accomplish just one thing in the entertainment industry, it's getting on IMDB. Because that's when you can PROVE to friends, family, etc. that you have really done something. You really worked in Hollywood. "Look, it's on the Internet!"

So it was kind of exciting to discover recently that I finally have an entry on IMDB. It only lists one credit... for the first pilot I ever worked on, "The Hollywood Show" in 2004. Who knows how it got in there. But it's there. It's cool. Ladies and gentlemen...

Ben Fritz on IMDB

I don't really have it in me to submit other, even less impressive, credits such as "This is Hollywood? with Andy Kindler" (an unaired pilot on AMC) or "Big in '04" on VH1 or "That's So Hollywood?" (an unaired pilot for E!). And yes I have worked on a lot of unaired pilots with the word "Hollywood." If you're thinking there's some connection to the fact that I run a website called Dateline Hollywood... well then you know me too well. Get a life, Mom.

The most fun thing about IMDB? I got my entry before Alicia. As I like to remind her, that makes me a bigger star than her, even though at that point she had already written a movie for Disney that sold several million DVDs and just finished working on a TV show that actually aired on ABC.

Tangential note: the "TV show" link above is to the official ABC page for the TV show that Alicia worked on which was very famously shitcanned after just one episode despite huge promotion. But ABC still hasn't taken it down from the website. Awkward!

And speaking of awkward, I was surfing on another blog very randomly today and discovered that the worst fear Alicia and I had when that show got cancelled has come true. The idea of Heather Graham starring in a sitcom has become not just a punchline, but a joke in and of itself. Poor Heather. As anybody who watched knows, she really was good.

The worst thing ever

2006-06-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

This local news report is one of the most painful things I have ever seen. The day I get referred to as an "unemployed porn site user" on the news is the day I put a gun down my throat. The day a reporter with a TV camera asks my parents what they think about their unemployed porn site using son masturbating in the library is the day I pull the trigger.

Check it out on youtube.

Of course, as with all awful local news reports, it's not clear who's worse: the guy masturbating to porn in the library, or the "investigative reporter" who devotes a six and a half minute piece to this pressing issue.

I hate democracy

2006-06-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is election day here in California... again.

I wouldn't mind that we seem to have so many frikkin elections if we were voting for important offices. But this has to be, far and away, the most worthless election I have ever voted for. The number of offices that shouldn't be elected for which there are PRIMARIES tomorrow, not even the real election, is insane. Then there are all the "non-partisan" judicial elections.

I definitely follow politics way more closely than the average citizen, but I don't know enough to make an informed choice for who would be the better democrat to be Lt. Governor or Controller or Insurance Commissioner. I certainly don't know enough to pick candidates for judge or school superintendant or county assessor and sheriff, all of which should be appointed positions. And I don't even know what the
"State Board of Equalization" or "Party Central Committee" are, but the latter sounds like something straight out of the Soviet Union.

Following are the offices / propositions I'll be voting for tomorrow, followed by my choices. Note that I will be skipping MOST of these, because I don't know enough to make an informed choice. It's absolutely insane that this is how we run elections. When there's too much democracy, then then entire system gets devalued, including the votes that actually do matter:

-Governor: Angelides. He seems smarter, has more substantive positions on issues that I have seen, his negative attacks aren't as specious, and he has the backing of environmental and education groups. Also, I have been very impressed with his critiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger's budgets over the past few years, in which he has dealt with the painful choices we face in order to balance the budget, invest in education, etc.
-Lt. Governor: This person should be running as a ticket with the governor. I'm not voting
-Secretary of State: Two state senators named Debra (one is Deborah, one Debra). Ms. Ortiz doesn't even have a campaign website, so I'm guessing it's safe to say Ms. Bowen is the more serious candidate, so I guess she gets my vote
-Controller: Not voting
-Treasurer: Only one candidate, the state attorney general looking to switch jobs
-Attorney General: L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has always struck me as a hack, while Jerry Brown, for all his faults, is certainly intelligent and willing to try new ideas. So why not?
-Insurance Commissioner: Are you kidding me? This is an elected position? No way.
-State Board of Equalization: If I don't even know what it is, it shouldn't be an elected office
-Senator: Nobody serious running against Feinstein
-Representative: Ditto Becerra, who is a good smart progressive anyway
-State Assembly: We have gotten tons of mail and recorded phone calls about this. I guess we must live in a really competitive district. Of the main candidates, Christine Chavez is bragging about her connections to the United Farm Workers, which the LA Times recently revealed has become a machine to keep Chavez family members employed. Kevin De Leon seems to be the typical California liberal controlled by special interests (he works for the teachers' union). The LAT gave Elena Popp a good endorsement that convinced me.
-Party Central Committee: I guess this is our equivalent of the Supreme Soviet. Pass.
-Judge, School Superintendant, School Board, County Assessor, and County Sheriff: pass, pass, pass, pass and pass.
-Bond for public library contruction: Sounds like a good issue to me
-Universal pre-school: In general I like this idea, but enacting social policy by popular vote, and paying for it with a surtax on the rich, isn't a very bright idea. It seems like every election there's a new propsition with a nice sounding liberal policy paid for by taxing the rich. I'm all for taxing the rich to pay for important government programs (within reason), but it has to be done by the legislature in the context of the overall budget. So as I almost always do with propositions that involve spending money, this one is a "no."

Maybe the greatest irony of this democracy overkill is that we still don't elect our president by popular vote. Luckily California may soon be on the cutting edge of a movement to change that. I'll write more about that soon. I need some sleep to prepare for all the voting I'll be doing tomorrow

Excerpts from an interview with Bret Ratner

2006-05-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

I hereby offer the following excerpts from an interview Brett Ratner did in the Hollywood Reporter from Cannes where they're showing the latest movie he directed, "X-Men: the Last Stand." I have no editorial comment. I'm just running two interesting excerpts. Make of them what you will:

THR: Losing "Superman" must have been a real blow.
Ratner: I got upset that Bryan Singer's got "X-Men," Sam Raimi's got "Spider-Man" and they hired Chris Nolan to do "Batman." It was like, "What am I going to do? I'm not going to have any franchise."

***

THR: What's next for you?
Ratner: I'm going to the Vanity Fair party tonight, having lunch tomorrow with shoe designer Jimmy Choo and going on Ron Perelman's yacht.

Deconstructing Colbert at the White House Correspondent's Dinner

2006-05-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of controversy on the Web over whether Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondent's dinner was appropriate and/or funny. I've already said that while I can see enjoying seeing someone say right to Bush's face what many of us on the left have been thinking, I simply didn't think it was funny.

Obviously, humor is subjective and I can't say someone is necessarily wrong for enjoying it and even thinking it actually was funny. Of course, some liberals don't think this is quite so inconsequential a moment. They're calling those of us who disagree "apologists for the status quo." They're saying that a Democratic Congressional leader who said "some of it was funny" but Colbert “crossed the line” with many jokes that were “in bad taste" isn't a "real Democrat." As Brendan points out, liberals are as desperate for anti-Bush catharsis as conservatives were for anti-liberal catharsis in the heyday of PC, thus explaining the popularity of Rush Limbaugh's rantings.

Given all this, I thought it would be useful to go through the transcript and evaluate some of the main points in Colbert's speech to see whether they were funny and/or stinging. So here we go:

To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

A Dick Cheney face shooting joke. Always good for a little chuckle, but I think we can all agree this topic is just a bit overdone.

if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

Again, vaguely amusing, but a very old joke.

We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.

This is essentially the same joke Colbert tells on his show every night. It's funny only if you have never watched it for more than a minute or you just enjoy seeing him say it 10 feet away from the President.

I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

This joke isn't just old on "The Colbert Report." It's old on "The Daily Show." with Craig Kilborn.

I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit. In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible.

China makes cheap shit. Wow that's funny.

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Not remotely original as a political point, but it's a little funny to say it when playing a conservative character.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.

This has no teeth. It's just a super lame joke about how the people in Cirque du Soleil are flexible.

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

This is kinda funny.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

The one laugh out loud line in the speech.

Next comes the joke Colbert blows about the glass that's 2/3 empty, but we won't hold that against him.

Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

The joke is that Colbert forgot Rocky loses. Not very funny.

So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

The fact that Colbert doesn't get this makes no sense doesn't make up for the fact that it's a joke that makes no sense.

And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

No matter how stupid Colbert's character is supposed to be, he wouldn't actually praise photo-ops. So the joke dies on that ground. Plus it's the kind of obvious insult that people have made against politicians since the camera was invented.

This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!

Nobody can honestly say that was funny.

I'm sorry [Laura Bush], but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen.

If you're the kind of elitist liberal who thinks conservatives literally don't read books, I suppose this is funny. And as a bonus, you play into the very effective right wing strategy of saying that liberals think everyone who disagrees with them is stupid.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.

Again, not an original point at all, and there's no comedy laid on top of the old criticism of Bush. That being said, maybe you enjoy it because Bush is sitting right there.

I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

Fox News is right wing. Who knew?!

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

I suppose this is the point liberals swoon over because Colber, as Joan Walsh said in Salon, "exposed the mainstream press' pathetic collusion with an administration that has treated it -- and the truth -- with contempt from the moment it took office."

Now, I co-wrote a book about how President Bush has spun the public in large part thanks to a media that transmitted his spin, so I have something to say about this.

Colbert admits the media has served a very valuable role in exposing secret prisons and NSA wiretapping. He certainly has a very good point to make that the media did a pathetic job on WMD intelligence, going along with Bush administration spin even when they should have known better (they have tried to make up for this recently, but it's obviously too little too late). Tax cuts? As we wrote in "All the President's Spin," the President "generally received a pass from the supposed watchdogs in the press." So while it's not as much of a slam dunk as WMD, it's valid to include.

But global warming? In researching the book, we found more evidence of the press standing up to Bush on scientific issues, including this one, than any other. And I think in general it would be very tough to claim that the media hasn't reported consistently on the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming exists and is largely due to human behavior. It seems pretty undeniable.

But did Colbert "expose" anything? No way, Joan. This is a very old point that we and many others have been making for a long time. Again, liberals just got a hard on hearing somebody say it with Bush and the Washington press corps nearby. And it's only funny for the same reason.

Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home.

One of the main points of All the President's Spin is that the press does this too often, so it's certainly a valid criticism. But once again, it's neither original nor clever.

This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Like the photo-op joke, you have to believe Colbert's character is mentally retarded for this lame joke to even work.

. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld. Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.

Every mildly clever news reporter has pointed out that it's only retired generals criticizing Rumsfeld (for obvious reasons). And making fun of generals for standing on computers and ordering men into battle? That's actually kind of tasteless. Are we saying officers who work their way up to general aren't brave? That generals should fight on the front lines? Really?

Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Unoriginal and lame Jesse Jackson joke. Unoriginal and lame global warming joke which, by the way, contradicts the assumption that the Colbert character doesn't believe in global warming.

Justice Scalia is here. Welcome, sir. May I be the first to say, you look fantastic. How are you? [After each sentence, Colbert makes a hand gesture, an allusion to Scalia's recent use of an obscene Sicilian hand gesture in speaking to a reporter about Scalia's critics. Scalia is seen laughing hysterically.] Just talking some Sicilian with my paisan.

Kinda funny to do this right to Scalia.

John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.

Kind of funny point about the press corp's obsession with McCain being a "maverick." Doesn't fit the Colbert character at all (except at the end), but I kind of like it.

Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing, a seasonal cookie.

If a conservative made a joke about New Orleans the "chocolate city," I don't see liberals going for it.

Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god. [looks horrified] Oh, what have I said? I -- Je- minetti (sp?). I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife Joe Wilson's wife. Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.

Most obvious joke possible.

And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job."

I take it back. THAT was the most obvious joke possible.

Then comes the long and completely unfunny "audition" of Colbert to be press secretary where he avoids questions just like McClellan always did. It's a combination of weird and unfunny inside jokes based on the personalities or names of White House reporters and incredibly obvious points about the Bush administration’s unwillingness to answer questions, especially about Iraq.

And that's it. A couple of funny lines. One or two points that aren't incredibly unoriginal and/or obvious. Overall, I just don't see what there is to enjoy besides seeing somebody say what liberals think right in front of the people liberals hate (the President and the press). This is really groundbreaking? Damning? Funny? I don't see it.

Does comedy still have to be funny?

2006-05-04T01:16:00.000-07:00

Allow me to join my friend Brendan in noting a very important cultural fact at this moment: as ballsy and often on-point as Steven Colbert's "performance" was at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, it wasn't actually FUNNY.

I can understand the impulse of those on the left to hear someone publicly what they all think but is so rarely said publicly since Republicans control the government and most democrats are rather reserved, to say the least, in their public comments. That certainly explains the popularity of Jon Stewart and Colbert's political humor these days, which is so often much more "political" than "humor."

Not to mention the fact that the joke of Colbert's performance is essentially the same joke of his show EVERY night. I only watch like once a month and every time I turn Colbert on, I get sick of the joke after 5 minutes.

But the idea that the crowd wasn't laughing because they're all administration shills (not mostly liberal journalists) doesn't fly. These guys invited Colbert to speak because they like his stuff. Why else would he be there? They didn't laugh because very little that he said was funny. And that bit with him as press secretary was completely laugh free.

For an idea of how shrill and humor-less many on the left have become, check out the responses to (Republican) Robert A George's rather timid post on Colbert's lack of funny-ness over at left wing hot spot Huffington Post.

It's sad to say, but President Bush's routine with his impersonator was, while obviously less brave, at least kinda funny. While I agreed with a lot of what Colbert had to say, I enjoyed watching Bush much more.

Are video games art?

2006-04-23T02:26:00.000-07:00

For those with any doubts, the question is definitively answered by a game I just finished: Shadow of the Colossus.

It's an amazing work of art. Period. Visually, it has a distinct style that's almost impressionistic. Musically, it makes you feel tension and excitement and sadness, like any great film score or, hell, orchestral composition. Game play wise (a unique aspect of art for video games), it boils everything down to its simplest possible elements. This is a complex game that doesn't even require all the buttons on the PS2 controller. And the game manages to be challening without almost ever becoming frustrating.

In a really great innovation, the game is challenging and takes a while, but you rarely die. Instead, you can spend 30 or 60 or even 90 minutes alive battling a colossus. After all, what's the point of dying and starting over? For this game, at least, that would be a really artificial interruption, it feels like.

Narratively, it's unique and extraordinary. There is only sort of a story. It's there, I suppose, but it's only relevant at the beginning and end. The main character, who you play as, doesn't even have a name. It's too abstract a game for things like that to matter.

Most importantly, the setting and visuals and a pace create real feelings. When you're riding through an empty land to find a colossus to battle, you can feel the loneliness and desolation. And when you defeat a colossus, you feel sadness.

Why? Because this is, amazingly, a morally ambiguous game. You're defeating 16 colossi (I didn't know that was a word either) to bring someone back to life, but the colossi aren't attacking anyone. They're living peacefully in this isolated land. You're hunting them down and murdering them and the visuals and music make clear this isn't something to be celebrated. Each victory for the player is a little sadder.

By the end of this game, I felt genuine sadness. People ask if a game will ever make someone cry. Well, I didn't actually shed tears as I did at Brokeback Mountain, but I felt genuine sadness at certain events I won't give away near the end. And in the final scenes, things switch up in a really fascinating and exciting and artistically interesting way. At the very end, the gives control back to you from what was a cutscene at a crucial moment. I won't say what happens, but it lets the player personally experience a feeling of desperation that's throughout the finale, but is so much more palpable because you yourself are, fruitlessly, fighting it.

Video games are art. And this is, in my humble opinon, the greatest artistic achievement the medium has known. (Though Katamari Damacy is a close second, albeit for very different reasons).

BTW, no surprise that Shadow of the Colossus swept the Game Developers Conference awards. And no surprise it lost most of the gamer magazine awards to Resident Evil 4. This isn't the kind of game that the core 16 year old gamer would appreciate.

More prescience in All the President's Spin

2006-04-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

I hate to brag, so let's just consider this another reminder that President Bush is consistently dishonest, especially on matters related to the war. Just read this article from the Washington Post about the supposed bioweapons labs in Iraq that Bush, Powell, Cheney, et al deceived us about three years ago when selling the Iraq war. While this article has some new facts that weren't known at the time, the basic dishonesty of it was apparent by late 2003, when we were writing "All the President's Spin." As Brendan puts it... we told you so.

Katamari Damacy plut pot = bliss

2006-04-08T04:02:00.000-07:00

I have returned to Blogistan with a very important thought:

Katamari Damacy is the PERFECT game to play while high.

Why? Bright colors, funky soundtrack, totally insane setting/story/gameplay. To put it more simply, this game was obviously created by people who were high.

And when you're high, you come up with the BEST idea for KD. Because you're in the perfect mindstate to think creatively about a game where a tiny prince rolls up every object on Earth into a giant sticky ball.

Player created levels... think about it. It's exactly what we need in Katamari Damacy. And if it had an online community, players could share (or sell?) the best levels that they create.

Call me, Namco.

Hollywoody video podcasts: in which I learn XML

2006-03-17T17:15:00.000-08:00

After several false starts, I taught myself (very simple) XML and created an RSS feed that has put The Hollywoody Show -- starring my favorite fake film critic Woody Wittman -- on iTunes as a video podcast.

I know both of my readers never want to miss an episode. So subscribe here.

BTW, this is my favorite review of Woody, which came from FishBowlLA:
"[Woody] does for morning show movie critics what Borat has done for foreign correspondents."

Worst Best Picture Ever

2006-03-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

I think that "Crash's" victory at the Oscars may go down as the greatest travesty in the Academy's 78 year history. Not just because "Brokeback Mountain" is certainly one of the greatest films of the past 10 or 20 or more years and people will look back in disbelief that it lost in a few years.

But I don't know of any best picture winner in the past that was so objectively awful and phony. I know I've never walked out of a movie hating it and then seen it go on to win the biggest award in the industry. Mind boggling.

Other people have described just how awful "Crash" is, and why this victory is a tragedy, much better than I. For a really smart take on why "Crash" is such a phony look at life in Los Angeles, read this column and this column by LAT writer Steve Lopez. And for a smart, if too modest, take on the Oscar travesty, read this letter to (the mind bogglingly in love with "Crash") Roger Ebert by my friend and "Movieline" editor Geoff.

And if you're dying to know MY reaction -- as the world surely is -- I expressed it in this satirical article for Dateline Hollywood. ("Hollywood Proves it's not Racist.")

The Blookers

2006-03-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'm allowed to brag a little bit, right? The book I co-wrote, All the President's Spin," is a finalist for the "Blookers," a new prize for books based on blogs. They appear to have had 53 entries and six finalists, so that's pretty cool.

I also just got the latest sales update from our publisher and if I am reading the complex report correctly, we sold over 30,000 copies, which is also pretty cool, I think.

Meet Woody Wittman

2006-02-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

Starting today, we added video to Dateline Hollywood. It featueres a new character Gil and I created and shot with a couple of other friends. His name is Woody Wittman and he's the movie critic who "tells it like it is," i.e. he never really understands the movies he's reviewing.

Check him out at www.datelinehollywood.com/woody

In addition to this week's "Oscar Special" we already shot Woody's reviews of "The Shaggy Dog" and "Failure to Launch," which should go online in the next couple of weeks.

I think they're funny, but we'll see if anybody else does. They're really fun to shoot, at least.

Thank God for smart conservatives

2006-02-16T01:13:00.000-08:00

I don't say this very often, but today's George Will column is really a must read. Liberals can and should protest the Bush administration's disdain and dismissal of the separation of powers and the Constitution, but that argument really carries power when it comes from a conservative who supports the Bush administration's supposed agenda of limited government and respect for the law.

In actuality, Bush very obviously doesn't believe in either. Reading Will's column makes me yearn for a healthy and substantive debate between two sides that respect the Constitution and rule of law, but have disagreements over how much the government should regulate economic and/or social behavior. It seems impossible now that we have a supposedly conservative president who has grown the government and grabbed more power to interfere in Americans' lives than nearly any other President in history.

Tragic: The end of AmeriCorps*NCCC?

2006-02-07T00:55:00.001-08:00

Today at the gym I saw a girl wearing an AmeriCorps*NCCC t shirt and I stopped to talk to her, thinking it was the rare occassion that I found another alum of the awesome national service program I served with. (For an essay about my NCCC experience, read this)

It turns out she is currently in AmeriCorps*NCCC and is in L.A. on a project, which is awesome. So we were talking about her experience and what they are doing and she told me something, well, tragic:

In his new budget, President Bush proposes to eliminate NCCC.

Here's the relevant paragraph from today's budget related press release from the Corporation for National Service (AmeriCorps' parent agency):

For AmeriCorps*NCCC, this budget requests only $4.9 million, which is intended to cover the cost of closing our campuses. This is a difficult decision, given the popularity of the program with our participants and partners, particularly in disaster response. However, the NCCC is costly compared to other AmeriCorps programs and was rated poorly in a recent Federal management assessment. The Corporation is committed to building up the rapid and flexible disaster recovery capacity of the NCCC within the rest of the national service portfolio.

This is really horrifying news for me. Obviously I want to be fair minded about the need to cut spending. But at a time when we're giving huge tax cuts primarily to the wealthy and a massively inefficient prescription drug benefit and lots of other waste, it's really hard for me to accept that a program which costs around $30 million and does a ton of good for communities in need around the country, as well as the young people who are members, deserves to be on the chopping block.

My time in AmeriCorps*NCCC was probably the most important year of my life. I did a lot of good and learned a lot about my fellow Americans and myself. It made me a true believer in the importance of national service as a way to improve our nation and the character of our citizens.

Right now I'm totally in shock that the government may eliminate a really important component of national service. It's a horrible mistake. I really hope Congress restores funding for NCCC, but I'm doubtful.

I'm trying to think myself if there is a way I could effectively organize people to save NCCC. If I come up with anything good, I'm sure I'll write about it here. At the least I'm going to try and drum up a little press interest.

Press release of the day

2006-02-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

If you can't wait to read Dan Brown's follow up to "The Da Vinci Code," read the next best thing: a book that tries to guess what Dan Brown's next book will be!

SECRETS OF THE WIDOW'S SON: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code by David A. Shugarts (Sterling Publishing) is a book-length look into its author's highly educated detective work about the subject matter of the next Dan Brown novel.

Read this press release and be amazed that this isn't meant to be ironic at all.

I go off message in an interview

2006-01-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

A colleague just pointed out that I was quoted extensively in an online Newsweek article about "Brokeback Mountain's" success last week. It's a little funny to realize that, like all interviewees, I wasn't incredibly disciplined about what I said, though usually I'm the one doing the interviewing, not the other way around.

I was just surprised to see myself quoted in the following way:

Fritz says that even if it does not win a best-picture Oscar, "Brokeback" is likely to become a "cultural touchstone, that we look back on in five or 10 years as an important film."

I'm pretty sure I did say that, at least in an off handed way, and I do believe it, so it's not an unfair quote. But of course I'm a box office reporter, not a film critic. So while my other two quotes derive from my authority as something of an expert, this sounds (to me) like someone talking out his ass. I guess I'm just not sure why anyone else in the world cares that Ben Fritz thinks "Brokeback Mountain" will be a cultural touchstone in 5 or 10 years.

I just hate to see myself quoted in a way that I might make fun of as a reader. I guess the lesson is that it's really hard to stay "disciplined" and "on message" as an interviewee. I guess I have a newfound respect for Scott McLellan.

Batman Begins is SO good... and other 2005 movie notes

2006-01-27T01:05:00.000-08:00

I just re-watched "Batman Begins" and I remembered that in 2005 there were two really extraordinary films and this was one of them.

Yes, Brokeback Mountain was amazing and deserves all its acclaim. And it certainly deserves to win best picture and best director, as it probably will.

But how is Batman Begins not nominated for anything except maybe effects? How in the world is Gary Oldman not the front runner for best supporting actor? He gives what I think is far and away the best supporting performance of the year. He creates a Jim Gordon that was never there in other movies or the comics before, yet is so essentially and obviously the Jim Gordon that was always waiting to be there that I'm amazed.

The movie is so well cast (except, OK, maybe Katie Holmes) that if the SAG award for best ensemble was really for best ensemble, instead of a proxy for best picture, I think it would be a no brainer that Batman Begins should win. Everyone is great and, more importantly, perfectly cast in their roles. Especially the supporting characters. Oldman and Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson all bring a real 3-dimensionality to characters who simply never had it before in any medium (save for a few really good comics stories), but they don't change who their characters are.

And ultimately the screenplay and production design are amazing for their realism. This is how Bruce Wayne would become Batman if he were real. This is what the Batcave and Batmobile would look like if they were real. And on and on.

What's particularly awesome about that approach is it doesn't take anything away from previous incarnations. Tim Burton's fantastic film that portrays Batman as the psychopath a man dressed up as a bat might very well be still stands as a distinct and really entertaining interpretation.

My only complain about Batman Begins is that the villainous plot doesn't hold to the reality of the rest of the film. An international conspiracy to bring down cities is, well, kind of ridiculous. But when you want to connect Batman's origin in the Himalayas to a villian in Gotham City, there's just no way to do it smoothly. Batman Begins handles it as best it can and it's easy to forgive nad forget amidst so much greatness.

I suppose I could make a top 10 list of movies, but really, this is what i have to say.

-Awesome movies of 2005: Brokeback Mountain, Batman Begins

-Really good movies of 2005: Pride and Prejudice (the most down to Earth and relatable costume drama ever), In Her Shoes (sweet, involving, and so very much better than anyone would expect thanks to genius director Curtis Hanson), Match Point (a small but incredibly compelling morality tale), Sin City (the purest geek experience ever put on film), The Squid and the Whale (a small story that gets every detail right and perfectly straddles the comedy/tragedy line of real life), The Constant Gardener (a great and tragic thriller even if the politics are a bit simple), and, probably only because it was such a weak year for comedy, The 40 Year-Old Virgin (not a very well made film, but kinda funny and surprisingly compelling and heartwarming, with a shockingly great performance by Steve Carell)

-Most disappointing movies of 2005: The preposterous A History of Violence, the painfully unfunny and inert The Ice Harvest, the meandering The New World, and the wretchedly pretentious and fatuous Crash

Peerflix: fantastic yet retarded

2006-01-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

Peerflix is a brilliant idea for a business with one fatal flaw.

The idea is that you send DVDs you no longer want to people who do want them and get a credit in return for a DVD you do want from somebody else in the system. It's a great way to efficiently get DVDs people no longer want to those who do want them without the hassle of selling, getting cash, and then buying. And the company takes 99 cents per trade, which is utterly fair for the service they provide.

But it has one fatal flaw that boggles my mind. The system is only set up to send the DVD -- not the boxes. I had some time tonight and signed on to sell a bunch of DVDs Alicia and I have sitting around we don't want. I saw my credits piling up and was excited to get going. I clicked through to ship my first DVD and was a bit surprised that I could print out a mailer. I found it hard to believe to pieces of paper would be enough packaging to ship a full size DVD box, but I figured they must know what they are doing.

Then I printed it out and read the instructions and realized you are only supposed to insert the disc(s). Then I guess you just throw out the case. And the person on the receiving end gets a DVD with no box to put it in. So.... I guess I'm supposed to put them in a flipbook like I used to do with DVDs? I can't put the movies on the shelf in their box next to all the DVDs I bought new or used? That's utterly retarded. Everyone knows that, as with books, part of the reason to own a DVD is to display it, in the case, on the shelf. It's both easy to retrieve and a way to show visitors what movies you love. Perhaps it's shallow, but it's true.

And yes, obviously it's cheaper and easier to send a DVD without the box. But that's like buying a computer without the monitor. It's cheaper, but kind of ruins the point.

So tonight I signed up for Peerflix, listed a bunch of DVDs, agreed to send one, realized how it works and now delisted all the rest of my DVDs. I guess with the credit I got I'll be receiving one DVD I want in the mail soon. But it won't have a box. And the person who sent it to me will have thrown out the box. How utterly efficient and fantastic. Not.

America weighs in on my box office story... specifically about the gay movie

2005-12-13T02:06:00.000-08:00

Today a story I wrote in Daily Variety about the box office performance of this past weekend's films playing in limited release was linked by Drudge Report (and was put outside our normal subscription wall). Thanks to the oh-so handy "e-mail the author" button, I got some e-mail from readers with thoughtful analysis on my story. Interestingly, nobody had anythign to say about "Memoirs of a Geisha" or "Mrs. Henderson Presents." By some weird chance, everyone wrote with something to say about the record breaking performance of "Brokeback Mountain," specifically the fact that the film features gays.

A sampling (with names left out, despite my better bitter judgment):

To whom it may concern,

"Brokeback" may play well in San Francisco and a few other metropolitan areas with large homosexual communities but I seriously doubt that it will play in Peoria. Roughly 98 % of the population is "straight" and most could probably care less about two men falling in love with one another. However, as Hollywierd is constantly in search of new venues to explore (i.e. Brokeback), I would like to suggest that next year they release a film that depicts the love relationship between a 40 plus year old NAMBLA member and his pubescent lover. This is another perverted group that is unfortunately misunderstood and if the film is shown in the right markets (San Francisco, New York, Austin etc.) there's money to be made. I however will vote with my dollars and pass when "Brokebutt" shows in our local theatres.

---

Carefully choosing the limited release and claiming some astrounding record is a bit much. The truest measure is whether it plays in the heartland. New York (liberal capital), LA (porn capital), San Francisco (gay capital) are no doubt the target demographic for this nuanced first-run gay cowboy theme.

---

It's clear from your article that you believe that Brokeback Mountain will be a really big hit. I honestly do NOT believe that it will be, and I pray that the younger population has more sense that to "want" to seen it. Articles like yours encourage our younger generation to want to see such a film, and really "tell" them that they should support it..............Truly Sad!!

Until now, I very much enjoyed watching Heath Ledger in everything he has done. He's a good actor, as well as good looking! Yes, this was a "challenge" for him, but at what cost!!! He even admitted in interviews, that he was really nervous and hesitant with the gay love scenes..............wonder why??? Ummmm........... I have seen previews and several interviews about the movie. I will NOT go see the movie. The thought of the explicit scenes makes me sick!

Hollywood cannot understand why their box office receipts are falling off. Well, besides the promotion of homosexuality.......the liberal actors that think they are experts on running this country, and tell everyone (loudly), to the point of "damning" our administration, turns my stomach!! I used to LOVE to go to the movies, and went often. Now it's gotten to the point that there are VERY few actors that I want to see on the big screen.

---

Brokeback? Give me a break. Obviously all the gays in New York, LA and San
Fransico lined up to see this show resulting in sold-out theaters. Let's see
how it does in the rest of America where people with morals buy the tickets.
Your excitement over this film is a little pre-mature.

I'm tempted to comment, but really... these thoughtful Americans said it all. It's great how the Internet broadens the boundaries of democratic discourse.

Score two for old media

2005-12-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

An interesting article about troop morale in the LA Times Friday caught my attention because I think it helps to explain some of the conflict between the "good news" from some troops on the ground in Iraq and the "bad news" we often read about and see in the media. Here's the important quote from retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Randall L. Rigby:

"We have a group of soldiers now who are event-oriented. They get the school built and 400 kids have a place to go — well, that's all they see," Rigby said. "They don't look at the fact that [bombings by insurgents] are up fivefold.

In other words, they can both be right. Which is so simple it almost seems obvious. That also means conservatives who claim the liberal media is ignoring good news and troops on the ground have the true story, or liberals who think any kind of "embedding" that lets you see things from the troops' perspective, both have a narrow view.

Although let's be honest, lately it has been mostly conservatives bitching that the media ignores good news that troops report back. That's assserted with the confidence that troops on the ground can't possibly be wrong or have a limited view.

Speaking of conservatives with a narrow view, I was amazed by the reaction to a great LAT article today about how France warned the U.S. that the claims Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were bogus over a year before Bush (erroneously, according to the CIA) said so in his 2003 State of the Union address.

Well, when I say reaction, I of course mean good old Instapundit. Here's what he had to say:

THE TROUBLE WITH THIS REPORT is that you have to ask yourself: Would you have relied on the French?

More importantly, the persistence of the whole issue demonstrates the colossal folly of the Bush Administration's effort to take the United Nations seriously in 2002, something that -- like Bush's failure to fire a lot of people at the CIA following 9/11 -- has led to considerable grief and no discernible benefit.

I know I probably obsess over the guy too much in my limited postings, but he infuriates me whenever I read his blog (2 or 3 times a week).

Now honestly, one can of course debate whether Bush should have gone to the U.N. first before invading (morally, at least; strategically it would have been a disaster since it would have alienated our major ally - the U.K. - and some of the moderates who ended up supporting the invasion).

But I am so frikkin sick of war supporters refusing to engage the actual evidence of how the Bush administration mislead us into the war, often by ignoring evidence that didn't support their views. It seems like it's hardly a debate anymore over whether Bush et al were dishonest in their sales case, since Republicans never seem to deal with the piles of evidence. They just point out that some Democratic critics are hypocritical (perhaps, but that's a seprate issue) or that "everyone" believed Saddam had WMD (not quite true, but elides many of the specific WMD claims, especially about nuclear weapons, Bush and his aides made that alot of people didn't believe).

It has at least been heartening to see my local paper staying on the beat of how the intelligence about Iraq turned out to be so very long, although of course it would have been great to get some of this information before the war, or before the election.

Why maybe we should hurt troop morale

2005-11-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

I think this news brief in the Washington Post oversimplifies a really important point about criticism of the Iraq War.

It's about a poll from bipartisan political consultantancy RT Strategies that found 70% of Americans think criticism of the war by Democrats senators hurts troops morale, with 44% saying it hurts morale "a lot." Even 55% of Democrats agree it hurts morale, with only 21% saying it helps.

That's a fair and interesting point. But in a sense, it's not surprising. I would certainly agree that, on the whole, criticism of the war probably hurts morale somewhat. But, well... so what?

The implication seems to be that Democrats shouldn't engage in criticism. I'm sure that's why conservative blogs like Instapundit are so eager to link.

But there are other considerations besides troop morale. Like... is it a just war? Were we misled into war? Are we losing the war?

Politicians certainly shouldn't hurt troop morale indiscriminately. But it's far from the only consideration. And maybe, when a war isn't going well or was built on deception, troops shouldn't be led to think they are doing a great job for a noble cause. It's tough to hear, since most troops are good people fighting hard for a cause they believe to be bigger than themselves -- as it should be. But as in all elements of life, sometimes the truth is tough to hear.

Journalists: Help me help you

2005-11-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

My good friend Brendan continues to do excellent work on his blog pointing out the dishonesty and subtle attempts to suppress dissent by Bush and Cheney as they fight back against people who accurately point out they misled us into war.

One of his newest posts makes a point I have been repeating here (probably less cogently): This is a debate we could have settled last year. Most of the evidence being thrown back and forth are things on the public record for years. In many cases, we debunked or endorsed them on Spinsanity or in All the President's Spin after a very thorough vetting.

So allow me to reiterate Brendan's offer to journalists and high profile bloggers: contact me (or him) and I'll send you a free copy of All the President's Spin. Rather than reconstruct the record, or wait for Josh Marshall's bizarre compilation of dishonest claims we already compiled, check out what I might humbly call the definitive and comprehensive critique of Bush administration deception as of last summer.

Up is down! Black is white! Dick Cheney is honest!

2005-11-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

Dick Cheney last night:

I know what it's like to operate in a highly charged political environment, in which the players on all sides of an issue feel passionately and speak forcefully. In such an environment people sometimes lose their cool, and yet in Washington you can ordinarily rely on some basic measure of truthfulness and good faith in the conduct of political debate. But in the last several weeks we have seen a wild departure from that tradition.

Dick Cheney on June 22, 2004, to Senator Patrick Leahy, on the Senate floor:

Fuck yourself

(For something more substantive on Cheney's obscene hypocrisy and dishonesty, see Brendan or, per Brendan, see just how dishonest Cheney was in the first Bush term by checking the size of his index entry in All the President's Spin)

Didn't we settle this debate last year?

2005-11-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with the debate over deception leading up to the Iraq war like I haven't been obsessed with anything in politics since the election. That's largely because I feel very strongly that the most heinous and unforgivable thing President Bush has done in the past five years is mislead the country into war. Not because the war is wrong (that's a separate debate), but because it's so deeply immoral to circumvent honest debate in a democracy over the decision to sends hundreds of thousands of Americans into harm's way, tens of thousands to be seriously injured, and thousands to their death, not to mention the death and injuries to civilians. Anyway, you get the picture.

The other reason is that this is a debate we could easily have had a year ago... BEFORE THE ELECTION. How do I know this? Brendan, Bryan and I wrote a book that covered alot of this territory. It came out in August of 2004. We finished writing it in the spring of 2004.

Now, many people have written very cogent articles or blog posts about just how deceptive President Bush was in the runup to the Iraq war and what bullshit his and Cheney's defenses (for example, here, here and here) have been (see here, here, here here and here). And that's great.

But as we oddly have this discussion now a year after the election and two plus years after invasion and three years after Congress, including half the Democrats, essentially voted to give the President authority to go to invade Iraq (even if that's not what the resolution said, everyone knew what was going on), I think it's worth mentioning some things that were on the public record, at the latest, in the spring of 2004, and that we could have debated then if Bush was unpopular enough / Democrats had the balls to point out the truth then. All these points current being debated were demonstrated thoroughly in All the President's Spin (I won't explain them in detail on the assumption anyone reading this recognizes the key points. If not, please buy the book)

-The administration presented shaky evidence as fact or near fact to make it seem certain that Iraq had or was acquiring nuclear weapons

-Bush and his aides regularly used five- or ten-years or even older evidence about Iraq's WMD program, specifically on chemical and biological weapons, as if it was current intelligence (in fact they had little to no idea what Iraq had done on that front since 1998)

-The aluminum tube bullshit

-The nonsense about the unmanned aerial vehicles Iraq could use to deliver WMDs to attack us or our allies within 45 minutes

-Connecting Saddam Huseein to Al Qaeda by presenting the sketchy to disproven (depending who you ask and when) meeting of Iraqi intelligence officials with Mohammed Atta in Prague as fact (I'm talking to you, Mr. Cheney)

-Saying that Al Qaeda operatives were operating in Iraq while ignoring the fact that they were in Kurdish controlled nortern Iraq, not in areas controlled by Saddam Hussein

-Continually associating Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and 9/11 in his speeches without directly asserting they had a tight relationship in order to get the public to connect the dots in their minds (which seemed to succeed)

These are all facts on the record as of well over a year go. Some war supporters somewhat acknowledge it but don't seem to think it's nearly as important as I do. Fair enough. But then there's those Bush supporters who basically come across as pathetic, grasping at straws to make the other side look bad or hypocritical while avoiding the primary issue and the mountains of evidence reasonable people in this debate are engaging.

Bottom line: Did most people as of 2002 (and definitely in 1998, as many Bush defenders feel the need to point out, as if that was relevant 4 years later) believe Saddam Hussein had WMD of some sort? yes. Was the case much less certain than the Bush administration made it appear? yes. Was there strong evidence to back up the case that Iraq had nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program, as the Bush administration claimed? no. Was there evidence to back up the claim that Saddam Hussein had a connection of any significance to Al Qaeda, as the Bush administration claimed? no. Did any serious person think Iraq had a connection to the attacks of 9/11, as the Bush administration regularly insinuated? no.

Conclusion: Did high ranking officials in the Bush administration, including the president, say numerous things to rally support amongst the public and the Congress and the world community for the invasion of Iraq that they knew, or should have known, were untrue or misleading? yes.

Is that a serious matter for which the President should face serious consequences? hell yes.

a bad day for democracy

2005-11-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

Like most smart people, I think the initiative process in California is mostly a disaster and needs to be cut back significantly.

But I was really disappointed that Prop. 77, which would let a panel of judges draw congressional and legislative district lines instead of politiicans, lost yesterday. It's a rare case of a law that the legislature would almost certainly never be able to pass since it goes against members' own interests, even though it's in the public interest.

Letting politicians draw district lines in order to minimize competition is nothing less than a democratic travesty. When not a single one of the 153 congressional or state legislative seat changed hands in 2004, it's hard to see the difference between California and North Korea.

While it could be most people don't agree with me on this topic, I think it's more likely that 77 got lost amidst the general anti-Arnold vote, since 77 was part of his 74-77 block. But while 74-75 would have struck at public employees and 76 would limit the size of government, there's nothing inherently conservative about 77. When I had to convince my girlfriend that 77 was actually a good idea and not another attempt by Arnold to strike at his enemies, I realized this was not a good time for this proposition.

Given that a similar proposal lost in Ohio, it's clearly a bad year for democratic reform. We need better arguments to convince people of the urgency of shifting the way we vote so it becomes fairer and more democratic. I guess when people perceive such reform as a partisan issue one way or another (Democrats pushed them in Ohio), they don't have a chance. I guess we really need a strong inter-party or nonpartisan movement to get such changes implemented around the country so one day soon we might have a real democracy with accurate and transparent vote counting, fairly drawn districts, instant runoff (or some alternative to winner-take-all), and no more electoral college (for starters -- then someday soon maybe my ultimate goal of making the senate actually representative of the people so California and Alaska don't get equal votes).

Breaking news: the Earth is round and Bush misled us into war

2005-11-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

Another damning piece of evidence proving that the Bush administration, either out of malice or gross negligence, misled the American people about the WMD threat and connections to Al Qaeda in the run up to the Iraq war. Another damning fact that those who pretend the Bush administration just said what everyone thought will ignore.

If only there was some way people could have known before the 2004 election that the Bush administration was misleading the public on a number of specific pieces of evidence related to the threat Saddam Hussein posed. If only someone had written a book with an entire chapter with a chapter full of specific examples. If only this revelation wasn't a surprise because there was a way we could know this fits into a pattern of deception where the Bush administration regularly ignored contradictory evidence in order to keep making false claims about Iraq and a number of other issues. If only we knew the larger context in which to place this revelation, perhaps in the form of a book that made the fucking point with hundreds of examples that the Bush administration misled the nation on nearly every major policy issue in its first term.

If only reading articles like this didn't make me want to buy a megaphone open my window and scream to the world: "DUH!"