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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Congress. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

On this Presidents Day, it would appear that everyone but the President’s rivals for public affection are doing well in the polls.

Hillary Clinton has shed the image that she is a soft liberal and she is well poised to say, “I told you so,” about her erstwhile charge that Barack Obama lacks experience and fortitude. Even Dick Cheney is doing well, with the public behind him and against civilian trials for terrorist suspects. And we just found out that Evan Bayh is bowing out, probably to escape the anti-incumbency wave on the horizon even though recent polls put him 20 points ahead of his competitors. Given that Bayh left his party less than a week to scramble to collect 4,500 signatures for a viable candidate for his Senate seat, he appears to be setting himself up for a future run as a centrist Democrat who stands up to party apparatchiks. (And here’s another clue: “I am an executive at heart,” Bayh told reporters on Monday.)

The only people doing worse than Obama are Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Congress as a whole. As Evan Bayh put it, “I do not love Congress.” The atmosphere now in Washington is toxic and the poison is leaking down Pennsylvania Avenue and inundating the White House. That is why I am wondering if White House strategists are secretly hoping to lose Democratic control of Congress this year.

The conventional wisdom is that whatever the President proposes, Congress delivers. But not only has this not happened, the failure of Congress to act collectively to pass legislation (especially on
healthcare reform) has tarnished the name of the Democratic Party of which the President is titular head. As a result of the seeming asset of unified Democratic control of all branches of government, Barack Obama could not do what Reagan did when he too suffered from bad poll numbers in his first years in office as a result of recession – blame the other branch. The American people love to hate Congress, and unified Democratic control of all the elected federal branches has merely reinforced the Americans’ instinctive fear of consolidated power as the Tea Party Movement most viscerally represents. The American Presidency thrives on blame avoidance and freedom from party ties, not single-party government.

Because Washington moves so slowly no matter who is in power and when it does it invariably creates a program so sullied with pork-barrel compromises, it is often better to be able to blame someone else for failing to deliver than to have delivered anything at all. Lyndon Johnson doesn’t get high marks from historians for creating Medicare. And FDR’s fame did not come from the Social Security Act. If we do not judge presidential success by legislative achievements, then presidents are better off when they act unilaterally against a recalcitrant Congress. Better still if this Congress is controlled by another party because presidential unilateralism can be executed without dilemma. Barack Obama would then be free to descend from the law professor’s lectern, as Sarah Palin put it, and move, as Publius recommended, wi

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the health-care reform bill that the House passed. See his previous OUPblogs here.

Democrats must be thinking: what happened to the halcyon days of 2008? It is almost difficult to believe that after the string of Democratic electoral victories in 2006 and 2008, the vast momentum for progressive “change” has fizzled out to a mere five vote margin over one of the most major campaign issues of 2008, a health-care bill passed in the House this weekend. If you raise hopes, you get votes; but if you dash hopes you lose votes. That’s the karma of elections, and we saw it move last Tuesday.

Democratic Party leaders scrambled, in response, to keep the momentum of “Yes, we can” going, by passing a health-care reform bill in the House this weekend. But despite claims of victory, Democratic party leaders probably wished that their first victory on the health-care reform road came from the Senate and not from the House. President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have always hoped to let the Senate pass its health-care reform bill first, initiating a bandwagon effect so that passage in the House would follow quickly and more easily, and a final bill could be delivered to the president’s desk.

Instead, the order of bill passage has been reversed, making a final bill less likely than if things had gone according to plan. If even the House, which is not subject to supermajority decision-making rules, barely squeaked by with a 220-215 vote, then it has now set the upper limit of what health-care reform will ultimately look like. Potentially dissenting Democratic Senators see this, and there might now be a reverse band-wagoning effect. Already, we are hearing talk from the Senate about the timeline for a final bill possibly being pushed past Christmas into 2010. This is just what Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama were hoping against, by pushing the Senate to pass a bill first. Unfortunately for them, the Senate took so long that to keep the momentum going (and amidst the electoral losses in NJ and VA last week), they felt compelled to pass something in the House to signal a token show of progress.

But the danger is that the move to regain control may initiate a further loss of control. The less than plenary “victory” in the House bill has only made it clearer than ever that if a final bill is to find its way to the President’s desk, it will have to be relieved of its more ambitiously liberal bells and whistles. Even though the House Bill, estimated at a trillion dollars, is more expensive than the Senate version being considered, and it has added controversial tax provisions for wealthier Americans earning more than $500,000, what the House passed was already a compromise to Blue Dogs. On Friday night, a block of Democratic members of Congress threatened to withhold their support unless House leaders agreed to take up an amendment preventing anyone who gets a government tax credit to buy insurance from enrolling in a plan that covers abortion. If even the House had to cave in some, there will have to be many more compromises to be made in the Senate, especially on the “public option.”

Sequencing matters in drama as it does in politics. It is at the heart of the Obama narrative, the soul and animating force behind the (now unraveling) Democratic majority in 2009. “Yes, we can” generates and benefits from a self-reinforcing bandwagon effect that begins with a whisper of audacious hope. From the State House of Illinois to the US Senate, from Iowa to Virginia – the story of Barack Obama is a narrative of crescendo. “They said this day would never come” is a story of improbable beginnings and spectacular conclusions. The structural underpinnings of the Obama narrative are now straining under the pressure of events. To regain control of events, the President must first regain control of his story.

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Yesterday at Booklights I talked about monster books that are perfect for Halloween but aren't shelved in the holiday section of your library if, say, you were supposed to get a book for reading to your child's class and somehow put it off until the last minute and then realized that the only thing you had in the house was Clifford's Halloween and you were not using that because okay, he's a BIG dog and you so get it already and there has to be something better and there totally was except all the moms who were doing their job correctly made it to the library when they should have and left the shelves empty except for one beat-up copy of Clifford's Halloween which would make you scream, but with a deep breath you remember the monster books at Booklights - with some additional suggestions in the comments from Abby (the) Librarian - so you can pick out something very appropriate and fun for the kids.

In that post, I mentioned the two poetry books of Adam Rex, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake. Amazing, funny, brilliant, books with incredible artistry. A better blogger would now spend some time reviewing one or the other of them, but I expended all of my energy on that run-on sentence above. So instead you'll get a poem. And not even the whole poem, because now I'm getting freaked out by the legality of that. Plus the whole poem really needs the illustrations to make it work to its full potential. But in any case, here is the beginning and you can get the book to see how Girl Scouts fit in.

Folloween

No ghosts are seen on Halloween,
except for kids in sheets.
No zombies ring for anything
apart from tricks or treats.
Though people say
today's the day
when bogeymen
come out to play,
November first is when the worst
of monsters hit the streets.

And in disguise the dead arise
to sell us magazines.
In ties and slacks
they hand out tracts
as fine, upstanding teens.

Before I got to the second part of the poem, I was absolutely certain that he was going to talk about election campaigners. I don't know how it's been in other parts of the country, but in Virginia the election is huge with the Republican candidate for governor leading by double digits in a state that went blue in 2008. I've been getting tons of calls and campaigners coming by and flyers at every local event. Obama even came to a rally in Norfolk, but a little late I think. The only thing that could really help the Democrats now is if people take the new health care legislation seriously and don't want Virginia to opt out of a public health care choice. In any case, they'll have to campaign without me on Folloween because I need this weekend to catch up on things I let go for the last two months.

I also need time to prepare - possibly - for National Novel Writing Month. I've never been interested before, but I do have a book in my head and maybe this is the time to let it out. I don't know. Is it crazy to go from being consumed by KidlitCon to committing to writing a novel in a month? Are you doing it this year? If you did it before, was it worth the pressure?

Oh, Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jennie at Biblio File. Happy Halloween everyone!

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the election in Iran. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

Let me be the first to admit that I don’t know if the recent Iranian “election” was fraudulent, but the faith some pundits have placed on the “evidence” for their conviction that it was gives me pause.

The elections certainly weren’t free and fair, not least because the regime had hand-picked the slate of candidates, but we are unlikely to ever know that straight-up fraud was involved or if voting irregularities were of a higher frequency than those we have routinely taken for granted even in this country. Our failure to contemplate even the possibility that many a dictator has been democratically elected is a dangerous democratic hubris that has shaped and sometimes thwarted our foreign policy.

I am not asserting that the Iranian election was definitely legitimate, only that it is at least remotely possible that it was. At least two independent pollsters agree, and have offered the illuminating factoid from their poll that the only demographic group that found Hossein Mousavi leading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were graduates and those with high-incomes. (That is to say, they are people most likely to resemble western spectators still staring at the final vote tally in disbelief.) Yet Christopher Hitchens would have none of it and Steve Clemons has decided that there will be blood. But is the blood that Clemons not implausibly predicts will ensue the result of the subversion of democracy in the Iranian electoral process or its success?

Shutting down the media may be egregiously non-democratic, but it is different than creating ballots out of thin air. The reason why this distinction matters is that we must learn to contemplate why millions of people around the world would want to rally behind fanatical leaders who hold such spectacularly repugnant positions as denying the holocaust. This has happened so many times before that it makes our failure to accept its possibility even more revealing of the depth and scope of our mind-block: consider the cases of Gamal Nasser (Egypt), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Jerry Rawlings (Ghana), Slobodan Milošević (Serbia), and now, possibly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Democracy is messy, and it is not naturally or dialectically inclined towards human rights, western liberal ideals, or the best candidate according to our standards. Neo-conservatives in America positing that the Iraqi people would welcome our troops as liberators back in 2003 have had to learn the hard way the costs of believing what they wanted to believe. In an analagous way, today’s pundits have been so quick to assert that the Iranian people in their post-election riots have exposed the charade of their recent “elections,” but maybe it is democracy itself that has outwitted the pundits. To understand the unpredictable and poigant path of democracy and democratization in the world, those of us who believe in democracy must urgently and honestly contemplate the number of times we have been hoisted by our own petard.

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In October, Obama sent out letters to a few US Agencies addressing concerns and issues that the President of the American Federation of Government Employees (John Cage) had inquired about. Concerning the letter to the EPA, Obama states:

I strongly oppose attempts by the Bush Administration to thwart publication of EPA researchers’ scientific findings, as well as the attempt to eliminate the agency’s library system. In an Obama Administration, the principle of scientific integrity will be an absolute, and I will never sanction any attempt to subvert the work of scientists.

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I voted. I feel that only one candidate shares my values of intellectual freedom and privacy and the importance of public institutions like libraries. If you’re not against that sort of thing, please go vote today. Thank you.

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I just love puppets.

From the Lion Brand Yarn newsletter:

Hold Your Own Debate With Presidential Finger Puppets

These are serious times and we have a serious choice to make, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun! Who do yarn lovers choose for president? Tell us who your presidential pick is and we'll publish the results! Click here to vote!

Free Pattern: Crochet Barack Obama Free Pattern: Crochet John McCain

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This week’s episode of Spark on the CBC gives an interview with Ron Deibert who runs the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. His digital wishlist for the Canadian election is available as a video and can be summarized in three excellent points:

1. An elected government should ensure net neutrality
2. An elected government should protect the Internet internationally to ensure free, unfettered access to information in all countries
3. An elected government should support technological innovations that have goals other than those of making money (or those that follow the market rationale). For example, technological innovations that can support human rights.

Ron Deibert says that the Internet is a shared global communication medium but it’s being “carved up, colonized, and militarized” and an elected government in Canada should do all it can to stop this.

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How timely is this?

Hillary wasn't first. Nor was Ferraro. Have you heard of Belva Lockwood? I had not either before reading this fabulous picture book biography.

Belva once read that a person could move mountains if he or she only had faith. Belva believed this wholeheartedly, and lived her life accordingly. Belva was born in Niagara County, New York in the year 1830. She was the daughter of a farmer, and by the time she was a 39 she had already been married, had a child, been widowed, become a teacher and gotten involved in the suffrage movement. She decided that she wanted to attend law school. In 1869, however, not many law schools wanted to admit women, and the few that did certainly did not want to grant degrees to the women who attended. If you've figured anything out about Belva by now, you know that she found a way to get her deserved degree, and to have it signed by President Ulysses S. Grant to boot!

What could be next for Belva?

After becoming the first woman to graduate from the National University Law School, she became the first woman to practice law in the federal courts. She was the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. She rode her tricycle around Washington D.C. oblivious to the stares from those around her. And then in 1884, Belva became the first woman to officially run for president.

Before the ratification of the vote, Belva ran for president! And she got votes. Votes from men. 4711 to be exact. She got more votes than that, but they were thrown out, since the men doing the counting could not believe that anyone would actually vote for a woman.

I found this story not only timely, but incredibly inspiring as well. An author's note, glossary and timeline are included, which make this ripe for classroom use. Do today's kids know that the vote was taken away from women in 1787 (1807 in the case of NJ)? Author Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen has done a great job of writing a readable storyline filled with, but not laden down by, facts surrounding suffrage and the political process. Courtney A. Martin's illustrations reflect the time period, though I do wish that the cat accompanying Belva everywhere was explained! This is a book that deserves a prominent place in classroom and library alike!

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Andy sent me this quirk from the Chronicle, "Who Needs a Dorm During Finals?"
The holidays push everyone to do quirky things. Especially students. And even me. I have been obsessively tracking the status on the Christmas cards we are sending out this year. (They have not yet arrived at our house, where I can then redistribute.)

Perhaps it is because we've never actually sent Christmas cards before. And the ones we're receiving from friends with 4+ kids BEFORE Christmas are stacking up. No longer do I feel justified in saying "but we have a new baby, and I'm back to work, and we've had 16" of snow, and I have been busy sussing out the Presidential candidates for the rest of the nation..."

No, it may just be that the holidays drive us to it. Maybe it's the prospect of being reckoned and coming up short--whether it be your final exam grades, your year-end budget review or simply the perfect Christmas gift. We all wish for perfection in ourselves, I think, and sometimes this quest takes us to interesting places.

Like the library. While you celebrate this year, take a moment to remember your salad days, your youth and do something quirky. Just for me.

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Please, renew your ALA memberships, including your YALSA memberships, because if you don't, they you cannot vote. And remember: you do not have to be a librarian to be a member.

The slate of people running for all offices and committees is up at the YALSA Blog.

Last year, you may recall I was a Printz candidate, and won! Which means starting soon I will be reading my little heart out (my reading is for 08 titles for the 09 Printz.) Which probably explains why I've taken a bit of a book break these past few weeks.

Anyhow, enough me. Check out the Printz slate: Carlie Webber is running!!! (Yes, they use her full first name, Carlisle, and have not corrected the typo on her last name. Sigh.)

Carlie is a contributor at Pop Goes the Library, originator of the awesome idea of the Supernatural stars on a READ Poster. She is also the Teen Coordinator for BCCLS (Bergen County Cooperative Library System), which runs a mock Printz every year. More info on Carlie can be found at her blog.

For Tea Cozy readers, here are the important things to know:

Carlie is the source of the most awesome "the plural of anecdotes is not evidence."

Carlie is a book goddess. She knows her stuff, and is very good at recognizing quality stuff.

Carlie is going to be a guest blogger here! I know! I've been trying to figure out how to get more reviews up, especially as my time is getting limited with other commitments, so Carlie said she'd help Tea Cozy out!

So, make sure your YALSA membership is up to date so when elections open, you can say "yes" to Carlie (you get to vote for 4 people, 8 are running.)

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You can get the election results here. I'm just glad the Saipan Casino Act went down in flames.

Angelo has a discussion going on about the effect of blogs on the vote. I'm sure others are licking their wounds or celebrating in style.

As for me, I'm enjoying the relaxed post-election atmosphere. The tension from the uncertainty has drained away. Good or bad, whether you like the results or not, we now know what we'll be living with for the next few years.

I personally was surprised that so many incumbents won re-election. And I would like to hear what others think is the reason?

Do we not blame them for the present predicament? Are we still having candidates win based on family size? Are the incumbents who won somehow perceived as different than the others? What's up?

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ALA and YALSA elections are coming up; in order to vote for the YALSA part you must be a member of ALA and YALSA by January 31, 2007.

The election opens March 15 and closes April 24.

Go over to the YALSA blog to see the full slate of candidates for different positions.

Please note the candidates for the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award Committee:

Elizabeth Burns (yes, this is me!)
Donna Cook
Stacy Creel-Chavez
Alison Hendon
Celia Holm
Ellen Loughran
Karyn Silverman
J. Marin Younker

Eight candidates are running for four positions. The full policies and procedures for the Printz are here.

Cross posted at Pop Goes the Library.

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ALA and YALSA elections are coming up; in order to vote for the YALSA part you must be a member of ALA and YALSA by January 31, 2007.

The election opens March 15 and closes April 24.

Go over to the YALSA blog to see the full slate of candidates for different positions.

Please note the candidates for the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award Committee:

Elizabeth Burns (yes, this is me!)
Donna Cook
Stacy Creel-Chavez
Alison Hendon
Celia Holm
Ellen Loughran
Karyn Silverman
J. Marin Younker

Eight candidates are running for four positions. The full policies and procedures for the Printz are here.

Cross posted at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy.

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If you're a member of YALSA, you have your ballot by now; please vote for me for the Printz Committee! My answers to questions to the candidate (basically, so, why should I vote for YOU?) are over to the YALSA Blog.

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I would like to send out a big THANK YOU to all YALSA members. The results of the 2007 election are in, and -- drum roll, please -- I am a member of the Michael L. Printz Committee!! This is the Committee that will select the 2009 winner, so I don't start reading until 2008.

Congratulations to all; but a special shout-out to my fellow New Jersey librarians, Sarah Cornish Debraski who is Vice President/ President Elect, and new Margaret A. Edwards Committee member Sharon Rawlins.

Links: YALSA Blog

I cannot find the ALSC election results, but will edit and post once I do.

The ALSC Election results. Once again, congratulations to all, with a special shout out to Ed Spicer, (09 Caldecott Committee) and to NJ librarian Carol K. Phillips (09 Sibert Committee Chair.)

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Greg Sablan sent me this with a request to post on the blog. So here goes.
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The Commonwealth Election Commission has received reports that there are individuals informing our citizens and registered voters that a “yes” vote means “no” for some of the questions on the November 3, 2007 general election ballot.



There are seven (7) questions for Rota and for Saipan and the Islands North of Saipan, and six (6) for Tinian and Aguiguan, that require a yes or no vote. The questions are all found on the right-hand side of the ballot and they are for the four (4) judicial retention questions and the two (2) House Legislative Initiatives and the Saipan Casino Act for Saipan and the Islands North of Saipan and the Rota Casino Act of 2007 for Rota.



For the record, a “yes” vote means that a voter is approving the question, whether it is for the initiative or for the retention of the judicial officers. A “no” vote is a vote in opposition, a disapproval, of the question.



Thus, if a voter votes “yes” on the Saipan Casino Act, for example, that voter is voting to approve the initiative. A “no” vote means the voter is not in support of the initiative.



The same goes for all the questions on the right-hand side of the general election ballot.



Anyone having more information about this issue is asked to please report the matter to the Office of the Attorney General, the Public Auditor or to the Commonwealth Election Commission.



Sincerely yours,



GREGORIO C. SABLAN

Executive Director

COMMONWEALTH ELECTION COMMISSION

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Whoever is spreading the nonsense (about a yes vote meaning no) must not think our CNMI voters are very smart. Or else they're just desperate. I trust that most (all?) blog readers already know this, but just in case, or in case you find someone else asking about this, you can say you've read the official answer--yes means yes and no means no--and give a straight answer (without thinking it's a joke).

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