Post-debate morning after

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night reminded me how much I hate debates.

Hate, hate, hate.

It’s not really a subset of the fact that I hate political speeches. Speeches are different; they tend to be a big snooze unless the person is Churchill or Lincoln. Debates are much more fast-paced (although of course they have their dull stretches), and feature arguments. My problem with them is not that I dislike arguments, it’s that the arguments in political debates—especially ones that are not really debates, but more like competing sound bites—are shallow and often won by the better and more convincing liar.

I don’t like it. It makes me tense. Last night was no exception.

When did we start this stupid process of debate after debate after debate before the nominations and even before the primaries? I well remember the Kennedy-Nixon debates, which were a big deal at the time. But they really were more like actual debates, featuring two opponents who were their parties’ nominees. To the best of my recollection (and I assume they’re online and I could go back and watch, but probably won’t) they were sober and mostly-substantive affairs, and the candidates were dignified and serious. But today’s public would probably not be entertained enough by such a thing.

I’ve found that Ace and I are in agreement about a lot of things in last night’s debate, so since he’s already done the heavy lifting I’ll just quote him:

1. Ted Cruz won in three different ways:

First, he won on debate points. This matters the least, but it’s still important. Especially just to deny this win to Rubio.

Second, and this is big, he stood up to the Big Bad Bully Alpha Male Trump and won. Other people have stood up to Trump — and have come out looking foolish and diminished. Cruz prevailed.

Even when people say he lost on the “NY Values” exchange (an assessment I don’t share), he then lost while doing the actually important thing, appearing to be an in-command alpha sparring with another alpha.

Third, he appeared more human and likable…He also kept his good spirits in every single argument, which I don’t think anyone else did.

2. Trump kind of won just by not appearing to be a maniac.

…Trump’s goal is not to win in these things, nor to even appear informed. His goal is just to not be so outclassed, or so uninformed, as to disqualify himself. He often flirts with exactly this, but “mostly false” is, for Trump, a victory. “Mostly false” means “slightly true” and that’s good enough for him.

This was his best performance, meaning it was pretty weak, but again, he’s not playing to win, he’s playing just to not be disqualified in terms of complete incompetency and unsuitability.

He prevailed there… kinda narrowly, but he did.

3. Marco Rubio actually was angry — no joking, he actually was trying to appear angry to “channel” the base’s anger, I suppose…

I don’t think he did that well. He did okay. But it’s critical to keep in mind the sales pitch of Marco Rubio: That this is a once-in-a-generation natural political talent; that he is so informed and so persuasive when he speaks that he brings people to tears, like Obama; that no matter how much you oppose Rubio’s support for amnesty and college Kangaroo rape courts, you must vote for him anyway, because he’s such an amazing candidate as far as performance and charisma that he’s our only real shot at beating Hillary.

So here’s the problem: When Ted Cruz, and maybe even Chris Christie and even Donald Trump kind of beat you, you can’t offer yourself up as that once-in-a-generation talent, now can you?

His gun answer was good…

Overall — a fine performance, but a fine performance isn’t enough for him. He’s been sold as exceptional. “Fine” doesn’t cover the rent, Marco.

Ace goes on to criticize Christie. I disagree with him—I like Christie better than he does—but I think that Christie probably is out of it as a candidate, so I’m sticking to the current Big Three above. I would add, though, that I don’t think Rubio’s anger put off a lot of people. I think he was probably going for gravitas to balance out the accusation that he’s too young and a lightweight, and I think he succeeded, and was particularly good on the gun issue.

That said, have I told you that I really really hate debates?

Fiorina’s lack of traction

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Saunders asks why Carly Fiorina has failed to catch on:

Carly seems to me to be the only candidate who has given any thought as to what the next President should DO, beyond repealing all of Onederboy’s executive actions and Obamacare.

I can’t figure out why she hasn’t gotten more traction (although she is repeating her catch phrases too often ”“ she needs a little variation in phraseology).

Early on, when I was first being exposed to Fiorina in this campaign, I was very impressed. This was echoed in the public response to her first debate. People had been unfamiliar with her at the outset, but once they saw her in the undercard, and then more people watched her in the second debate after she was promoted to first string, they liked her and her numbers soared. Then the numbers started to sink, and now they are low enough that I think she’s out of contention. What happened?

I think it was a combination of things. She is one of three people in the race who haven’t got experience in political office, and she was the least well-known of the three prior to running. Therefore, because people didn’t have a backlog of impressions about her, smear campaigns have had greater force because they fill in the blanks. When she began to rise, for instance, and people were just getting to know her, I noticed a veritable flood of commenters arriving on blog after blog after blog spouting the same talking points over and over. It was clearly some sort of organized effort, although by exactly whom I don’t know.

The two points they kept making were that (a) she was a disaster at Hewlett-Packard, and (b) she delivered a speech a couple of weeks after 9/11 where she talked about Islams’ Golden Age, ergo she is pro-Muslim and would be soft on terrorists.

I wrote about each issue several times. No need to go back to them at the moment, because right now I’m not arguing on the merits, but talking about the process of her falling support. Suffice to say that I think neither claim was correct, and there’s plenty of evidence for what I thought, but because people were unfamiliar with her previously (and because there were so many alternative candidates to support) it was easy for a lot of newly-acquired Carly supporters to say, “Oh, well, if she did that then I don’t like her anymore; I’ll just support x, y, or z instead.”

Carly didn’t have much money to put out a blitz campaign to fight it all. What’s more, she was vulnerable on her H-P record and had made enemies, as most CEOs in hard times do. Like Romney with Romneycare (another issue I discussed on this blog quite thoroughly at the time), although there were explanations that put her in a very good light, it was easy to criticize her and make the critiques stick, especially in the absence of deep and detailed knowledge of the problems each person had faced and the limitations that were inherent in the situations.

I also think that, even though Fiorina seemed to maintain her equanimity during the campaign, something got under her skin ever-so-slightly. She kept her clarity and her ability to get to the heart of the matter, rhetorically speaking, but she made a decision to be very very solemn during the debates. This decision was not a good one; it made her seem hard and humorless. I’ve seen her in person, and she is definitely neither—in fact, she’s feminine and warm and funny. But during the debates, those qualities were muted or absent in her. That did not help her at all, IMHO.

Lastly, as Richard Saunders has pointed out, there is a certain repetitive quality to some of her sound bites. This is true of all the candidates, but I think it’s a bit more true of her than of the others. I’m not sure why she does it, because she can certainly think on her feet and speak very well extemporaneously, but my guess is that she may still believe most people don’t know her and haven’t heard her say these things before and so they bear repeating.

I didn’t watch the undercard debate last night, but I hear that she shone. Will it propel her upward again? Perhaps. But as I said, I don’t think she will break through to become a contender.

Tonight’s debate

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ll be watching, at least that’s the plan. Every now and then I might even write something.

You can, too.

9:30 PM: Boy, did Cruz just give a good answer on the birther issue. And Trump’s response is incredibly petty, small, and narcissistic. I would imagine the Trump people will see it quite differently.

Legally, Cruz can’t get a declaratory judgment, as Trump suggests, as far as I know. Nor can the Democrats sue. That’s not the way the courts and the law work.

And Cruz just made a great joke—he might offer Trump the VP slot, and if Trump is right and Cruz is disqualified, then Trump will be president. Any time Cruz makes a successful joke, it helps him, because he is widely seen as humorless (he’s not).

9:42 PM: Carson speaks movingly of Republicans needing to stick together to support whoever is nominated, and cites the likelihood of appointing of Supreme Court justices next term as one major reason.

9:56 PM: Rubio: “Terrorists don’t get their guns from a gun show.”

10:00 PM: Cruz on the subject of evidence that Obama is against guns—Cruz just rattles off point after point after point. Makes me wonder what it would be like to have a president who’s really brilliant.

10:31 PM: For a while at least, on the subject of fighting terrorists and of immigration from Middle Eastern countries, all the candidates were on the attack against the one they should be attacking—Obama.

10:50 PM: I can’t imagine that Jeb Bush has helped himself at all this evening. But he’ll keep limping on, as long as his money holds out.

The value of a contested Democratic primary

The New Neo Posted on by

I think it’s great that Sanders is giving Clinton a run for her money. It couldn’t happen to a nicer or more deserving woman.

However, it’s one of those “be careful what you wish for” things. I think this country has gone far enough to the left that, if Sanders were to actually be nominated, he has a chance of winning the whole shebang. And although I would say that he’s a contrast to Clinton in terms of honesty, he’s still a leftist and would be a disaster in that sense.

But I do see great value in the fact that Clinton voters will have to fight Sanders voters, and that therefore Democrats will be motivated to vote in their own primary rather than cross over to mess up the Republican primary even more than it’s already messed up. When there’s an incumbent (for example, in 2012) that’s not true, and with the open or semi-open primary rules of so many states, you can get a lot of Democrats voting in the Republican primaries in order to help what they consider the weaker candidate to win. Originally, when the Clinton nomination seemed like a cakewalk, I was afraid there would be a great deal of that sort of thing, but now I think it will be minimal, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire where Sanders seems strong.

The Republican field: and then there were—how many?

The New Neo Posted on by

And then there were seven on tonight’s debate stage.

Seven is still way too many. What on earth is Kasich doing there, except as a foil to annoy us? If you look at national polls, the reason is not apparent; Fiorina still seems to be slightly besting him. Apparently, you can blame New Hampshire for his inclusion.

As far as I’m concerned, it could be just five people up there: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, and Christie. And a person could make a good argument to limit it to just the first three, although I think it’s premature for that. But I am eager to see the field get winnowed down, so we can finally see how it will shape up when the various wings of the party are not split.

There’s the angry disaffected “burn it down!” (with the “it” being the Republican Party) wing, most of which goes to Trump and some to Cruz. There is the more traditional conservative wing, owned pretty much by Cruz. There’s the somewhat-conservative and somewhat-moderate wing, split among Rubio, Bush, and Christie. The libertarian wing, which one would have imagined would have gone for Paul, seems not to be as interested in him as they were in his father, and I believe a great many of them have been siphoned off by Trump.

Which is the biggest wing, and what candidate can best consolidate that group under his wing? (I’m discounting Fiorina at this point, because I don’t think she can do it). It is my opinion, based on polls that ask which candidate is a person’s second choice and which candidate a person would never consider voting for, that Trump may be getting close to a ceiling on that. But I would never sell him short and say it’s not possible that he could be the nominee. It’s very possible that he could be, but I also see strong possibilities for Cruz or Rubio.

I think Carson will continue to fade, and I see a possible resurgence for Christie or Bush, but I don’t think either has a real chance of going the distance (except moneywise for Bush, which will keep him in the race no matter what his poll numbers are). Of the two, I’d absolutely be rooting for Christie over Bush. But in the end I think it will be Trump for the truculent, Cruz for the conservatives, and Rubio for the rest.

Alan Rickman, RIP

The New Neo Posted on by

Are they calling in all the cool British guys in the arts, aged 69? I certainly hope not. But first David Bowie, and now Alan Rickman, have died at age 69 of cancer:

Alan Rickman, one of the best-loved and most warmly admired British actors of the past 30 years, has died in London aged 69. His death was confirmed on Thursday by his family who said that he died “surrounded by family and friends”. Rickman had been suffering from cancer.

A star whose arch features and languid diction were recognisable across the generations, Rickman found a fresh legion of fans with his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films.

Well, I never saw the Harry Potter films (fanstasy genre; not my cup of tea). I think I saw “Robin Hood,” at least on TV, in which he played a deliciously and memorably riveting Sheriff of Nottingham.

The film I know best of Rickman’s was the less-well-known “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” a very quirky movie about bereavement. In it, Rickman takes somewhat of a back seat to Juliet Stevenson. He plays the quirky ghost of her deeply-mourned husband who comes back to gently haunt her and give her a little shove back into involvement with life. Rickman is a bit muted there, but still riveting in a film that has a tone that veers from deeply tragic and moving to very funny in a dark way.

Here’s a clip; I’ve cued it up to start when the Rickman character—Jamie, a cellist—first appears as a ghost to his startled wife, who until then has been in such profound mourning at his death that she’s nearly been undone by it. At first she thinks she’s just imagining him, as she plays the piano part of a piece they used to play together:

Here’s a more animated Rickman as the Sheriff:

Rickman had that thing called “presence,” and he brought it to everything he did. I saw him on the Broadway stage in 2011, in a play called “Seminar” which was mostly forgettable—except for him.

RIP.

Star Wars: the force doesn’t quite awaken

The New Neo Posted on by

I went along with family to see the new Star Wars movie over the holidays. I’m probably not the best person to talk to about it, since I’ve been lukewarm (hmmm; a pun?) about the entire franchise since the very beginning, when I saw the first installment in a way-too-loud Los Angeles movie theater.

So the current effort is pretty much like all the rest of them for me: mildly entertaining and mildly amusing—and then it evaporates, leaving hardly a trace. Oh, and I thought Daisy Ridley, the actress who plays the new heroine, was extremely good and made the most of what she was given to do. Very intense. And as usual, I liked the droid.

What I did notice, though, was Carrie Fisher in her role as Princess (now “General” in the Resistance) Leia. Apparently, I’m not the only one; Fisher and her looks (particularly weight and age) have been the subject matter of a lot of internet chatter.

In the original movie, Fisher as Leia (she of the cinnamon-bun hair) was cute. Kind of girl-next-door (or next-galaxy), although never a great Hollywood beauty. However, I hear tell that the metal bikini she wore in “Return of the Jedi” apparently figured in the erotic life of quite a few young men of the time.

Any actress who decides to put herself out there when older invites comparison with her younger self. Same for men, to a somewhat lesser but still significant extent. I would hate to have my older mien plastered up there on the big screen in full and dramatic detail, every wrinkle and sag highlighted and broadcast the better to compare with my younger visage. Fisher, plus Ford and Hamill, had to know they were going to invite comparison to their younger selves and that the best they were ever going to hear is that they are well-preserved for their respective ages (the two men are older than Fisher at 73 and 64 to her 59). Harrison Ford has gotten accolades for his state of preservation, although having seen the movie I can say that the marks of time are most definitely there, even in him. But how could they not be?

As far as Fisher goes, I noticed that she’d lost weight recently (I knew that she had gained quite a bit over time) and grown older. I expected both of those, but what I didn’t expect to see was that she was acting in a ponderous fashion, her gravitas tremendously out of place among the others, and with a bizarre frozen quality to her face. It didn’t even seem like the usual botox, because the problem appeared to concentrate around her mouth, giving her a sort of almost-pained lockjaw.

It was alarming to me. Could she open her mouth? Could she smile? I don’t think I saw either thing occur during the movie, and it troubled me in every scene that included her. I was alarmed for her, and when I tried Googling “Carrie Fisher frozen jaw” and the like, I was further alarmed that I seemed to be the only one alarmed by it.

So, all of you who’ve seen the movie: did you notice what I’m talking about? Am I the only one?

Germany and the New Year’s Eve attacks: Merkel tries to offer some solutions

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne and other parts of Western Europe have become publicized, there have been some glimmerings of an attempt in Germany to crack down at least a bit (or what passes in Germany for cracking down these days). Yesterday it was announced that Merkel’s government has suggested some changes in Germany’s sexual assault laws:

At present the courts can only order deportations when criminals are given custodial sentences of at least three years. The legal changes would allow deportations to go ahead for people given suspended sentences or jail-terms as short as one year, as well as for offenders aged under 18.

However, even those small changes may be hard to implement, because in Germany such deportation is only legal “to a limited range of states and only if the home country government agrees and the convicted person has travel documents.” This could easily rule out most of the refugees. And of course, it’s only an after-the-fact remedy: a crime must be committed first, and a perpetrator successfully identified and prosecuted. How often will that be happening, how many women will be sacrificed first, and how much money will be spent in an increased police presence?

Over one million asylum seekers arrived in Germany last year, and Merkel so far refuses to allow Germany to impose its own further limits, but insists on an EU-wide solution “through redistributing refugees inside the bloc, tighter external EU frontier controls and a deal with Turkey to reduce inflows from the Middle East.” Meanwhile, the newcomers continue to arrive.

This article (by David A. Martin, an international law professor at the U. of Virginia, and not a conservative) suggests that Merkel and Germany might have considered a “refugee” system (instead of an asylum system, which is what they have now), whereby would-be immigrants to Germany were vetted in Turkey and other Muslim countries where they had taken shelter in the camps there before being allowed into Germany. That’s more or less our own system at present; not that it’s so great, or that effective vetting is so very possible. But it’s also the case that in Europe, the refugees began to arrive by sea in droves without being vetted, and apparently there are laws there against merely turning them back, laws that originated when such arrivals were relatively rare. The laws have yet to be adapted to the present very-changed circumstances:

…[A] quota resettlement program, even if desirable, would not do much to rein in the current unruly flow, in part because European law, as construed by the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR], will not permit maritime interdiction or other blocking measures needed to discourage spontaneous asylum seekers…

Decisions from the ECHR over the last few years…have taken a strikingly inflexible stand against maritime interdiction or other barriers to access by asylum seekers. The human rights logic of these rulings holds considerable appeal on first glance. But they have never been tested on anything like the current scale…At some point there are inescapable capacity limits. And if anti-immigrant parties come to power, there may be far wider damage to the overall human rights structure within Europe, including withdrawals from ECHR jurisdiction.

Let’s pause for a moment to ponder the assertion in that very last sentence. “Overall human rights” would be damaged by anti-immigrant parties? Seems to me there’s more threat to German (and/or European) human rights from continuing to allow the entry of a large number of unvetted immigrants from countries where many of the people appear to have little or no respect for human rights.

The author continues:

…I]t is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Court, now chastened by the magnitude of the recent flow and cognizant of the risks exposed by the Paris attacks, might construe its earlier rulings to find room for carefully executed access restrictions.

On reading this, I feel gratitude for the fact that (so far) this country is not bound by the ECHR and its rulings. I have little doubt that we would be, however, if Obama and the left had their way.

Well, what do you know—people are gaming the Obamacare system

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, what else did its supporters expect? It was always obvious that this sort of thing could happen, and that if it could happen, it would happen:

Obamacare customers are gaming the system, buying coverage only after they find out they’re ill and need expensive care ”” a trend insurers warn is destabilizing the fledgling health law marketplaces and spiking premiums for everyone.

Insurers blame the problem on lax rules that allow more than 900,000 people to sign up for coverage outside the standard enrollment season ”” for instance, when they change jobs or move ”” without sufficient proof they are eligible. No one knows precisely how many might be manipulating the system, but the plans say they run up much higher medical bills and then jump ship, contributing to double-digit rate increases and financial losses.

Health plans also complain some customers are exploiting a three-month “grace period” ”” when they can keep getting subsidized coverage even if they’ve stopped paying their share of premiums.

Both those trends make the risk pools skew toward sicker, costlier customers ”” and under Obamacare, plans can no longer deny coverage to those with expensive medical conditions. That problem has been exacerbated by the large numbers of healthier people who are choosing to stay uninsured rather than shell out money for coverage.

So you mean that, prior to Obamacare, insurance companies weren’t just mean sons of bitches out to get you? Same for Republicans? There was actually, like, a reason insurance companies found it hard to cover pre-existing conditions? Not that a lot of states didn’t manage to do that, with high-risk pools (and some subsidizing of the high-risk pools) that—unlike Obamacare—didn’t disrupt the entire system of health insurance for healthier people, but merely supplemented it.

I know, I know, it’s all just a blip on the road to glorious single payer.

Iran and the US: first, the abasement

The New Neo Posted on by

Next, the self-abasement. (See also this.)

However, US officials have denied apologizing to Iran. Who’s telling the truth about that? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter to the world, which can easily perceive that the US has been humiliated.

Coming soon, the payoff.

[ADDENDUM: Ace has a post with more detail, including some footage that apparently shows the US commander of the sailors is shown issuing an apology while in captivity. I wonder whether any member of the press will point that out to administration officials who have said there were no offical apologies, and none from Kerry.]