The curve of an Instalanche

The New Neo Posted on by

{NOTE: I got an Instalanche yesterday for the Obama disfluency post, and the response of my sitemeter reminded me of this article, which originally appeared on Dec. 1, 2008. I thought it would be fun to republish a slightly-edited and updated version of it, since I noticed the same exact phenomenon when I looked at the traffic resulting from the most recent ‘lanche.]

An Instalanche—that’s a link from blogger Glenn Reynolds, who’s otherwise known as Instapundit—can drive a huge amount of traffic to a blog. Glenn’s own blog traffic hovers somewhere in the vicinity of 450,000 hits a day (let me spell that out for you: that’s four hundred and fifty thousand). Depending on the time of day, the day of the week, the way Glenn phrases the link, the general interest in the topic, and other variables that remain mysterious, an Instalanche can vary from a modest spike in traffic to a veritable tsunami of visitors.

But I’ve noticed there’s one thing about an Instalanche (or any high-traffic link) that is quite predictable: the graph of the visits always seems to follow a rather strict pattern. There’s a sudden soar the first hour. Then the second hour there’s a fractional step down that represents, very roughly, maybe twenty percent of the whole. Then another similar step down in the third hour, and so on. As the traffic diminishes, the size of the step-downs grows smaller and smaller, and the previously steep imaginary line connecting the steps becomes flatter.

I’m sure there’s a simple equation that expresses the relationship. Here’s a picture of it:

sitemeter11-30-082.jpg

As you can see, this graph charts the number of visitors to my blog on November 30, 2008, the day of the Instalanche. It is a snapshot taken towards the middle of hour twenty-two. It begins in the wee small hours of the morning, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, ordinarily a very slow time on a very slow day. My traffic was just getting to around the 70 hits-per-hour point when suddenly, at approximately 10 AM, in came the Instalanche and BOOM! went the sitemeter.

There were over 2,400 hits in the first hour after that, about 2,200 in the second, 2,000 in the third, and so on, down to those smaller steps with the smaller decreases between them. This particular Instalanche was good for about 12,500 extra hits that first day—and it’s still going on, albeit at a much reduced rate.

Obama’s Dukakis moment

The New Neo Posted on by

President Obama has often been compared to Jimmy Carter. But lately it occurs to me that there’s a lot of resemblance to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, who failed a basic emotional test in his response to a hypothetical asked during the 1988 presidential debates.

For those who don’t remember it, here’s a description of the event and the question that killed Dukakis’s candidacy. Some excerpts:

[CNN journalist Bernard] Shaw, looking commanding and stern, began: “By agreement between the candidates, the first question goes to Gov. Dukakis. You have two minutes to respond: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

In the press room, there were gasps from the reporters. “Whaaaa?” “Did he really say that?” “Un-BELIEVE-able.”

…Dukakis answered instantly and smoothly. “No, I don’t, Bernard,” he said. “And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.”

He had been on the record for years and years on that subject. Massachusetts had no death penalty and also had one of the lowest crime rates of any industrialized state in the country. Dukakis didn’t believe in capital punishment. He had seen all the studies and he didn’t believe it deterred crime…

In the press room, the murmurs over Shaw’s question now turned to mutters over Dukakis’ answer. “He’s through.” “That’s all she wrote.” “Get the hook!”

The reporters sensed it instantly. Even though the 90-minute debate was only seconds old, they felt it was already over for Dukakis. He had not been warm. He had not been likable. He had not shown emotion. He had merely shown principle…

Susan Estrich, his campaign manager, was in despair. “It was a question about Dukakis’ values and emotions,” she said later. “It was a question that was very much on the table by that point in the campaign. When he answered by talking policy, I knew we had lost the election.”

I’m not saying that Obama’s first statements about the Flight 253 bomber were up there with Dukakis’s faux pas in the suddenness of their effect. For Obama it’s been a cumulative thing, this morphing from “cool” to “cold.” But the transition has been accomplished.

Typical of the reaction to Obama’s remarks on the Knickerbomber is this column, which begins with: “This is no time for the return of Professor Obama.” Americans dislike being lectured to in a condescending manner by a president who seems removed and distant, uncaring and above-it-all.

But Americans don’t approve of an overly emotional president, either, as candidate Edmund Muskie learned to his sorrow in the snows of New Hampshire in 1972, when it was perceived that he wept too readily. And even the somewhat teary-eyed Bill Clinton was very careful about when and where he cried, and for what reason, and wife Hillary had only one carefully positioned lachrymose moment in an otherwise steely performance.

It may seem unreasonable of the public to demand of its presidents such a finely calibrated balancing act between too much expression of feeling and not enough, with the voters in the position of a bunch of all-too-fussy Goldilockses.

But these fine-tuned requirements are not arbitrary. We need a president who cares enough to understand our needs and concerns and to speak our language and send the right messages both in the domestic and foreign arena, but who is tough enough to not break down under the considerable stress of the office. Strangely enough, Obama seems to be lacking in both departments. In this, once again, he resembles Mike Dukakis, who not only failed the warmth test in answer to the rape question, but was perceived as not having the proper intestinal fortitude to be able to survive his photo-op in a tank.

Like it or not, one of the duties of a president is to be commander-in-chief. People need to believe on a gut level that a candidate or a president is capable of performing well in that role. But in Obama’s public addresses in response to the two most recent terrorist attacks, he has come across more as the country’s lawyer-in-chief than its commander.

[NOTE: And those on the left who say that Bush’s response to shoe bomber Richard Reid was similar (see today’s memeorandum page for several, such as this and this) are missing the point. By then, Bush had proven himself to the American people through his behavior during the crucible of 9/11, the subsequent anthrax scare (remember that?), and the Afghan aftermath, all coming in rapid succession. He had shown the requisite combination of caring and determination throughout, once he got over the first few moments post-9/11.

The Reid episode occurred in December of 2001, and it seemed very small at the time in comparison to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. The Knickerbomber incident looms much larger today, especially after the many quieter years for terrorism against the US during the latter part of the Bush administration. Obama has yet to prove himself in the same way; on the contrary, his reaction to the Knickerbomber is merely the latest in a pattern of troublesome low-key responses on his part to a host of events, including his initial reaction to the Ft. Hood shooter, as well as the riots in Iran during and after elections there.]

[ADDENDUM: When Obama’s lost Maureen Dowd, he’s in trouble. She compares him to Star Trek’s Spock, in a piece entitled, “As the nation’s pulse races, Obama can’t seem to find his.” Ouch.]

The Obama administration trifecta

The New Neo Posted on by

I found this pithy and trenchant description of the Obama administration at Ace’s:

All the ethical integrity of the Clinton administration combined with the economic acumen of the Carter administration and rounded off with the domestic policy and war-fighting expertise of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

A veritable trifecta of duncedom.

But I would amend it to say that, in all three respects, the Obama administration is substantially worse than these predecessors.

Suddenly, Obama’s not so fluent any more

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama was always a fluid if vapid speechmaker, although his off-the-cuff statements featured a lot of hemming and hawing. But I’ve noticed something that seems new: hesitancy even when he speaks from a prepared text.

Obama now seems to go off-teleprompter more often—perhaps because he’s been critiqued so much for its use—and when reading from notes on a lectern he stops and starts, as well as using a tennis-match-like repetitive back and forth movement of his head.

What’s more, Obama’s disfluencies have an odd cadence, coming at times that seem unnatural, as though he’s distracted and not even thinking about what he’s saying but rather merely reading it from a text he’s never seen before. Is he nervous? Lying? Nervous about lying? Nervous about being caught in lying? Aware that the gift he’s relied on his entire life is going or perhaps even gone, now that he needs it most?

Whatever the cause, I imagine it must be quite frightening to Obama (rather like losing your turns). He’s accustomed to having the magic touch when he speaks, and now he’s become self-conscious, watching every word. Many have remarked on his changed affect, as well; we hear descriptions such as “passionless” and “not properly engaged.”

Here’s a tape of Obama speaking about the Northwest Airlines bomber (we’re still searching for the proper name for the incident; I prefer the “BVD bomber” myself). I think you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about:

[ADDENDUM: It may be time to revisit this, which I wrote at a moment of low ebb in Obama’s campaign. And then there’s this, which if I’m not mistaken is the first piece I ever wrote about Obama. It was posted in May of 2007, and features the following observation:

]The problem is twofold. The first is that it may indicate not only a certain lack of toughness on Obama’s part, but a willingness to offer up excuses too easily. It’s okay for a Presidential candidate (or President) to be tired, but I’m not so sure he should be so eager to excuse himself on that score. I’ve often thought that, if the campaign is a grueling marathon, it’s probably a (pardon the phrase) cakewalk compared to the actual Presidency.

Just as the Presidency is not for the shy or those tortured by ambivalence, just as it requires a certain amount of narcissism (perhaps more than is healthy in ordinary life), it also requires true grit and enormous””almost superhuman””endurance. And if the President doesn’t feel up to it all the time, he/she is supposed to shut up about it and not let others see.]

[ADDENDUM II: The Anchoress has more to say on the subject, including this:

I suspect that what Obama wanted was to be the King, not the President. The King’s role is largely ceremonial. In time of national tragedy the King goes before the camera and says, “this is very sad.” If he can assign blame on a perceived enemy he does so, and then he steps aside and retires to his amusements while those actually in charge clean up the mess and determine how to prevent future messes. Everyone loves the King, defers to the King, rushes to do for the King, but the King -who tends to get bored and distracted by the dry business of actually governing- is responsible for very little, and most are just as glad of it.

And American Digest has more as well.]

[ADDENDUM III: Michelle Malkin takes note of the tiredness factor.]

For the man who has everything…

The New Neo Posted on by

…give him the perfect woman.

I suppose it was inevitable. We’ve become so used to the artificial enhancement of body parts that a normal woman has begun to look abnormal. So, why not improve on things with a completely artificial woman?

Le, who built his first robot when he was four, has dedicated his life to creating the perfect humanoid and his success so far with Aiko has won him worldwide attention.

Aiko, whose name is Japanese for ‘love-child’ has an amazing artificial intelligence and can speak 13,000 different sentences in two languages

‘Aiko can recognise faces and says hello to anyone she has met,’ he said…

Aiko, whose age is ‘in her early 20’s’, is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.

She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.

‘Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,’said Le.

‘If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you.

And so, let us leave them there, the perfect couple:

fembot3.jpg
[Hat tip: Instapundit.]

If Reidcare has lost Bob Herbert…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it’s in some big kind of trouble.

Herbert is ordinarily one of the most stalwart supporters of whatever the left might be dishing up at the moment. But his relatively clear-minded and well-reasoned opposition to the Cadillac health insurance tax levied by the Senate bill indicates that he (and others on the left) are not going to roll over easy on this one. Although Herbert doesn’t state it in the column, my guess is that he is angry that there’s no public option, and that the Senate bill is a watered-down pastiche of disparate elements that pleases no one except perhaps the insurance companies. So he’s calling foul.

One of the phenomena I’ve noticed recently is the growing anger on the left towards Obama about a host of things, one of which is that, even with this “historic opportunity” afforded by enormous Democratic majorities, the bills in both House and Senate are not what the left would have them be.

That’s not exactly Obama’s fault, since he’s no longer a member of the legislature. But he’s shown no leadership on this issue, leaving the details to the tender mercies of Congress. The result is a batch of sausage that isn’t particularly tasty to either left or right.

Liberal backlash: Napolitano must go

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times readership is really really angry—at Janet Napolitano. Take a look at the comments section for this article; here’s a typical sentiment, one of the more moderate of the bunch:

On Sunday—even as a supporter of President Obama, and I also do not approve of “knee-jerk reactions”—Sec. Napolitano really came off badly. She was answering questions—fair questions—as a POLITICIAN, and not as somebody who is in charge of “Homeland Security”. To claim that the system worked was idiotic. To try to “backtrack” today and say she was misconstrued or taken out of context is heinous, because it is a bald-faced lie. I watched the program “live”, and even as a Democrat I could see her lying, deceiving, attempting to mislead, and passing the buck. She needs to resign, because she has to be a disingenuous person to have done what she did. We need truthful, accountable, and responsible people in charge of such an important program.

That’s the problem when you lie so boldly and people are actually paying attention: you tend to get caught. Many of the comments were even critical of the President himself. But quite a few, like the one above, seemed to assume that Napolitano was acting on her own when she said “the system worked” (many call for her to be fired)—even though Press Secretary Gibbs said essentially the same thing, and all of it was congruent with Obama’s silence and then his minimizing, pallid statement on the subject.

The blueprint mapped by Obama the progressive

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that it’s nearly a year into Obama’s presidency, I find myself having a recurrent experience: I’ll go back and read something from the past, but now with the perspective provided by the passage of time I experience an “aha!” moment in which the old text gains deeper meaning because it resonates with events that have occurred in the interim.

In that spirit, I plan to revisit and to expand and comment on a few of my old posts from before the 2008 election. The first is the following, originally appearing on this blog on November 3, 2008:

Many of the revelations about Obama that have come out in the past week have been excerpts from old interviews. I’ve even come across one myself—this piece that appeared in Harper’s two years ago, back when Obama wasn’t yet exercising such tight control of his mouth and his message.

It’s instructive to look at what Obama was saying when his every word wasn’t being scrutinized. Here, for example, is the 2006 Obama on how to be practical and to seem less radical than one actually is:

Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary…What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I’m not rendered politically impotent.

Sounds as though Obama is saying he is tempering his more extreme agenda because he knows it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Makes a great deal of sense, actually. But he’s not denying that agenda. In fact, he’s biding his time [emphasis mine]:

…Obama said he had no doubt that if the Democrats controlled Congress, it would be possible to move forward on important progressive legislation.

The alternative, until then, is to be opportunistic and look for areas where he can get enough Republican support to actually get a bill passed. That, he said, “means that most of the legislation I’ve proposed [as Senator] will be more modest in its goals than it would be if I were in the majority party.”…

“Karl Rove can afford to win with 51 percent of the vote. They’re not trying to reform health care. They are content with an electorate that is cynical about government. Progressives have a harder job. They need a big enough majority to initiate bold proposals.”

Well, guess what? Obama may soon have his wish. If he’s elected President and both houses of Congress go strongly Democratic, he will finally have that “big enough majority”—and then some.

Looking back at this piece now, I wonder once again how it was that people believed this man would function as a moderate or from the middle. Although shortly after the election I expressed that hope, I was very clear towards the end of the 2008 campaign that I thought the vast preponderance of evidence was that Obama was not just a liberal but a true “progressive” and man of the Left, and would advance that agenda as best he could. The fact that progressives are angry at him right now for not succeeding doesn’t contradict the assumption that his goal would be to satisfy their wishes if it were only possible.

The 2006 Harper’s article linked at the beginning of my piece contains a few more tidbits that I didn’t highlight or quote then, but which have taken on added significance now. You can’t say Obama didn’t warn us, at least in the beginning—although he and the MSM set up smokescreens later, so that only those who had been paying very close attention knew what we were getting into.

Here, for example, is another passage from that Harper’s piece:

[Obama] managed to win a tremendous majority in his home state of Illinois despite rhetoric, and a legislative record, that marked him as a true progressive. During his first year in the state senate””1997””he helped lead a laudable if quixotic crusade that would have amended the state constitution to define health care as a basic right and would have required the Illinois General Assembly to ensure that all the state’s citizens could get health insurance within five years.

Please let that sink in: one of Obama’s initial acts on being elected to his very first public office was an attempt to codify health care as a basic and guaranteed right in the state of Illinois. This was back in 1997, which indicates how long-held his dream has been, and why he has pushed for so-called health care reform now despite the fact that the financial crisis makes this one of the worst times possible for such legislation. Combine this 1997 attempt of his with the sentiments expressed in the other quotes from Obama highlighted here, and it becomes clear that he understood long before becoming president that he would need to move quickly on his long-held agenda if he ever found himself in a situation in which Democrats held a huge majority in Congress, no matter what the economic situation and no matter what the public sentiment about the legislation.

Is it any wonder we are in the position we are in now? Is it any sort of puzzlement any more why the Democrats are “committing suicide” with this unpopular bill? Is there any doubt that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi et. al. are following a plan to get the camel’s nose in the door with this particularly weak and chaotic legislation while they can, and then push for greater and greater “reform” over time, “fixing it later?”

Obama laid it all out three years ago, and appears to have had the same ideas as far back as 1997 and even earlier. Back then, though, hardly anyone was paying attention.

[NOTE: A few more highlights from that 2006 Harper’s article:

—“In 2001, reacting to a surge in home foreclosures in Chicago, [Obama] helped push for a measure that cracked down on predatory lenders that peddled high-interest, high-fee mortgages to lower-end homebuyers.”

—“Throughout his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama called for social justice…” (see this)

—“Yet it is also startling to see how quickly Obama’s senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. He quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on.”]

More Obama silence—this time on Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

Iran is in turmoil, with major demonstrations against the government and a major and violent crackdown on demonstrators by the government, and President Obama is silent once again.

Boy, when that man takes a vacation, it’s really a vacation.

“Ah, but it’s the holidays,” you might say. Except for the fact that there was no Christmas worship, and no presents exchanged. A vacation from Christmas, as well? Pretty soon people will be saying he’s not a Christian.

Janácek interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

I happen to love these two works of music by Czech composer Leos Janácek, from his piano cycle of thirteen pre-WWI pieces called “On an Overgrown Path.”

I love that evocative title. They fit the somber mood of the present day, and are extraordinarily beautiful besides, especially the second one. Enjoy.

[NOTE: You may recognize the cycle as having been featured in the film “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” based on the novel by one of my favorite authors, Milan Kundera, another Czech. But that’s not where I first encountered it. It was the accompaniment to a beautful ballet by Jiri Kylian choreographed in the early 80s.

What’s more, I tried long ago to learn these two pieces on the piano, in the manner of my Chopin jaunt. But alas, I was roundly defeated; they are fiendishly difficult.]