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Harm de Blij is the John A. Hannah Professor of Geography at Michigan State University. The author of more than 30 books he is an honorary life member of the National Geographic Society and was for seven years the Geography Editor on ABC’s Good Morning America. His most recent book, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, he reveals the rugged contours of our world that keep all but 3% of “mobals” stationary in the country where they were born. He argues that where we start our journey has much to do with our destiny, and thus with our chances of overcoming obstacles in our way.  In the post below, written for National Geography Awareness Week, Blij looks at America’s geographic illiteracy.

The election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States revealed once again that American society is capable of revolutionary self-correction. The state survived a Civil War that brought an end to human-rights violations of the most dreadful kind. The Civil Rights Movement, a century later, completed a long-dormant cycle of American transformation on the basis of a Constitution whose terms, as Presidents Kennedy and Johnson proclaimed, had not yet been met. And now, two generations on, the unimaginable has happened. My mail from all over the world over the past several days has one common theme, amazement – and a second thread, admiration. People who usually went to bed before the polls closed in their own countries’ elections stayed up all night to watch the drama unfold in America. November 4, 2008 was Global Awareness Day – global awareness of America and its continuing importance to the future of this planet.

But from the American side, the two-year-long preoccupation with electoral politics took its toll on U.S. awareness of the world, and revealed some geographic illiteracy among the candidates that gave cause for concern. Even those news media still committed to some global perspective shrank their international coverage in the face of the demand for, as CNN put it, “all politics all the time.” And it was not just a matter of diminished attention to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other headline topics. Right next door to us, Mexico is becoming the Colombia of Middle America, but the drama – and it will have huge repercussions in the years ahead – barely makes it into print. In our hemisphere, enormous changes are occurring in Brazil, with China strongly in the picture, but the geography of this emerging superpower hardly makes the headlines. Even Russia’s growing belligerence (how soon Moscow’s portentous actions toward Georgia faded from view) only made the news when its president failed to congratulate president-elect Obama on his victory and used his acknowledgment of the event to threaten missile emplacement in Kaliningrad. Let us hope that National Geography Awareness Week 2008 will mark a renewal of attention to global concerns.

On the matter of geographic literacy, it was disturbing to hear one presidential candidate refer to the Iraq-Afghanistan border and another suggest that you can see Russia from Alaska (to be sure, there are places where you can, but not as her assertion intended). Anyone running for the highest or the second-highest office of the United States ought to know what NAFTA means and realize that Africa is not a country. As to Kaliningrad, let’s not even go there.

So long as we have national leaders (as has recently been the case) who are not adequately versed in the environmental and cultural geographies of the places with whose peoples they will have to interact, and which they seek to change through American intervention, we need to enhance public education in geography. Whether the world likes it or not, the United States still is the indispensable state of the twenty-first century, capable of influencing nations and peoples, lives and livelihoods from pole to pole. That power confers on Americans a responsibility to learn as much as they can about those nations and livelihoods, and for this there is no more effective vehicle than geography. It is a matter worth contemplating during National Geography Awareness Week.

Paul M. Collins, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. He is author of Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making which explores how organized interests influence the justices’ decision making, including how the justices vote and whether they choose to author concurrences and dissents. In this article, Collins discusses the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama relating to their likely appointments to the federal courts.

One of the most significant choices presidents make involves the selection of federal judges. Through these decisions, presidents, with the advice and consent of the Senate, are able to leave their mark on the American political system long after they leave office. In the last forty years, each president has appointed an average of two Supreme Court justices, whose service on the Court lasts about 26 years. Equally, if not more importantly, each president has appointed an average of more than 200 judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts, who typically serve more than two decades on the bench. While less visible than the Supreme Court, these lower federal courts play a major role in the fate of legal and public policy. In fact, the vast majority of appeals in the federal court system are terminated in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, making these institutions the de facto courts of last resort in the federal judiciary.

Given the fact that the selection of federal court judges is one of presidents’ longest lasting legacies, the question remains: what types of judges will the presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, nominate to the federal bench? One fairly non-controversial factor is immediately apparent: both candidates will nominate qualified judges who will survive the scrutiny of the Senate confirmation process. In addition, it is likely that both candidates will seek to diversify the federal bench in terms of its racial, ethnic, and gender composition. Beyond these similarities, the presidential candidates exhibit stark differences in terms of their potential judicial nominations.

The primary factor that distinguishes the two presidential candidates centers on the ideologies of their likely judicial nominees. McCain, who is more outspoken about his potential judicial selections than Obama, would attempt to appoint conservative judges who fit the molds of Chief Justice John Roberts, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justice Samuel Alito—three of the most conservative justices to serve on the Supreme Court in the past forty years. Conservative judges tend to support restrictions on civil rights and liberties, favor the expansion of government funding to religious institutions, oppose affirmative action programs, and side with the interests of the states over the federal government in federalism disputes. While it is difficult to predict exactly who a president would appoint, potential Supreme Court nominees in a McCain administration might include District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Janice Rogers Brown, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Emilio Garza, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Edith Hollan Jones, former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, and former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

Obama would likely move to appoint liberal or moderately liberal judges who share the judicial philosophies of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice John Paul Stevens. Liberal judges tend to reject limitations on civil rights and liberties, favor a clear division between church and state, endorse affirmative action programs, and support the interests of the federal government over that of the states in federalism disputes. Potential Supreme Court nominees in an Obama Administration might include District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw. Some have even entertained the potential nomination of New York Senator Hillary Clinton, although I think that is a rather far-fetched possibility.

A second and related issue that distinguishes the two candidates involves the politics of abortion. While neither candidate has indicated a willingness to use support for or against a woman’s right to choose as a litmus test, it is very likely that McCain would push to appoint judges who would restrict access to abortion, while Obama would attempt to appoint judges who oppose most restrictions on access to abortion. While I am confident that it is extremely unlikely that Roe v. Wade will be overturned by the Supreme Court because its central holding—that the right to privacy encompasses a woman’s decision to have an abortion—is embedded within American political culture, the ability of judges to expand or restrict access to abortions is nonetheless a powerful authority. This fact will not be lost on interest groups, which will elevate the abortion issue in their efforts to sway the selection of federal judges though both grassroots lobbying efforts and direct contact with members of the Senate. The high levels of interest group conflict over the next president’s judicial nominees will be made apparent to the American public as organized interests run internet, radio, and television ads centering on the next Supreme Court vacancy.

Finally, there is a pragmatic issue that must be kept in mind when discussing the presidential candidates’ potential judicial nominations. That is, it is very likely that the Democratic Party will not only maintain its Senate majority, but also expand the size of its majority by picking up additional seats in the 2008 election. This bodes better for Obama than McCain in terms of their ability to appoint judges with relatively strong ideologies to the courts. Simply put, it is very unlikely that a Democratically-controlled Senate will confirm an extremely conservative judge. However, there is little reason to believe that a Senate controlled by Democrats would interfere with Obama’s attempts to appoint strongly liberal judges. Given this reality, it is likely that McCain would have a difficult time appointing judges in the mold of Alito, Rehnquist, and Roberts, while Obama would have little trouble appointing judges who mimic Ginsburg and Stevens.

Presidential elections are about many things and, while the judges presidents choose are rarely at the forefront, judicial appointments nonetheless allow presidents to shape the American political system long after they leave office. In all likelihood, we will see two or more retirements from the Supreme Court in the next few years. The most obvious candidates for retirement are Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg, who are 88 and 75 years old, respectively. Both of these justices regularly vote with the liberal bloc of the Supreme Court, thereby giving the next president the power to substantially shape the future of this august institution. Moreover, history tells us that the next president will likely appoint more than 200 lower federal court judges. While less visible than the Supreme Court, these judges also wield considerable power in shaping American legal and social policy. The bottom line is this: Like it or not, there is no doubt that judges are policymakers. Because McCain and Obama differ in fairly substantial ways in terms of the judges they would likely appoint, it will serve the public well to consider the candidates’ potential judicial nominees before entering the voting booth to cast their ballots.

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Over the past few weeks I’ve sensed this mounting irritability, a deep-rooted feeling of being unsettled. There’s angst, a bit of woe, and a good amount of fear. It’s getting worse as we get closer.

Do you feel it?

McCain’s latest trick, the “Joe the Plumber Tour” that he’s kicked off in Florida has hit a new low in Gimmick Campaigning. Joe isn’t a plumber, and in fact, Joe is working with neither a plumbing nor a plumbing apprentice license. Joe hasn’t paid some back taxes. Joe, as seen on interviews, is kind of a jackass. But all of a sudden it matters that if he buys the plumbing business he will pay 3% more taxes on anything over $250,000? Cry me a river Joe. And this, it seems, is all McCain can think to talk about.

Where is the Joe the Teacher tour?

Never has it been more important to think. Never has it been more important to vote.

Yesterday General Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President and then firmly chastised John McCain’s hate-mongering ads and robocalls as “nonsense” and “over the top” for political campaigning. General Powell is a statesman. John McCain and Sarah Palin are moral meltdowns.

In the past few weeks, the deplorable duo have descended into the political sewer, belching out the same kind of gaseous slurs and lies that George Bush and Karl Rove used to defeat McCain’s Presidential bid in 2000. Remember? The smears reached peak stridency in South Carolina. McCain was accused of being homosexual, fathering a “black” child out of wedlock, and having a “dope-addict” wife. All lies. Now, after his commitment to run a “clean” campaign, McCain is indulging in even more vicious smears against Barack Obama. Fear-mongering robocalls accusing Obama of being a terrorist are clogging people’s phones in Virginia and other states. Racist TV ads that begin with Obama’s face in dark shadow visually suggest that the black man is dangerous. In every way possible, McCain is trying to make people afraid to vote for Obama.

Sarah Palin’s major function in the McCain campaign seems to be as the mindless attack dog and she acts as if she relishes the role. Forget any attempt at eloquence or intelligence. Palin follows a script filled with lies casting Obama as un-American and in league with terrorists. But who cares about lies? Following Karl Rove’s script, George Bush and Dick Cheney have conducted their entire administration based on lies. Who needs facts or evidence? Reality can be a hindrance. McCain and Palin are no different. After all, isn’t the lesson that if you repeat lies often enough, people will believe they’re true? Bush/Cheney started a war based on lies. Surely the same technique can be used to elect a president. It worked in 2004, defeating John Kerry.

Thankfully, increasing numbers of Americans are smarter this time. They see that John McCain and Sarah Palin’s lies are inciting hate and fear. At their rallies, people have shouted “kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned. John McCain even had to take the microphone from a supporter who said she was afraid of Obama because “he’s a Muslim.” McCain was forced to defend Obama from the hate and fear his own campaign has stirred up. It’s more than a sorry spectacle from two adults in public office who should know better. It’s offensive and dangerous – the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that once incited mobs to lynch black men and burn women as witches.

But if we can believe the polls, the McCain/ Palin lies are backfiring. In trying to paint Barack Obama as someone voters should fear, McCain has painted himself as the scary candidate, too angry, unfocused and impulsive to be President. In ignoring the economic and social issues that are the real threats to people’s lives, McCain is sinking his campaign ship in the slop of his own making.

I have never been a McCain supporter, but even I find it sad to see a man who heroically served the United States demeaning himself for political gain. In stooping to such sleaze, McCain shows his willingness to put his political ambition ahead of the country that he says he loves.

Then there is the matter of McCain’s judgment. In addition to condoning what may be the nastiest presidential campaign in American history, McCain’s selection of the pitifully unqualified Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, demonstrates extraordinarily poor judgment. I find it hard to believe that a man who truly loves his country could jeopardize it by selecting a running mate as ignorant as Sarah Palin. Should McCain become President and suffer a health crisis – or worse – elevating Palin to the Presidency would be like putting a not-terribly-bright high-school student in the Oval Office!

Finally, in the last debate, McCain betrayed a shocking contempt for women. With huffing and puffing and much head and shoulder jerking, he mocked Obama’s support of a woman’s right to abortion to protect the health of the mother. Using air quotes, McCain dismissed women’s health as the “extreme pro-abortion position.” In that exchange, McCain In effect, was saying that women don’t count. Like George W. Bush and the Republican right-wing, McCain wants to undo all the hard-fought victories women have won for their dignity, their privacy, and their right to control their own bodies. McCain, like Bush, would take women backwards to a time when there was no birth control, no reproductive options. McCain, like Bush, would overturn Roe v. Wade, have government invade the womb, usurp women’s bodies as state property, and deny women’s most intimate and fundamental right to exercise reproductive choice. This position should be unacceptable to every woman and every enlightened man. Returning Americans to the pre-contraceptive tyranny of the gonads is not a tolerable platform of a 21st-century president.

And that’s the biggest problem. McCain hasn’t moved into the 21st-century and he seems incapable of doing so. It’s not just his age; it’s his attitude, one which the younger Palin shares. McCain is hopelessly locked in the past and his presidency would drag us all back with him. Yesterday, General Powell spoke of America’s need for “a generational change.” McCain represents a past generation. Obama has the vision, the world outlook, the understanding of complexity, and what Powell called “the intellectual vigor” to address the wretched problems left by Bush/Cheney. It’s Obama who presents the possibility for change you can believe in.

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 reflects on the rehabilitation of liberalism. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

Whatever happens at the polls in two weeks, the pendulum has swung back in Liberalism’s direction. Economically, culturally, and ideologically, liberal answers are regaining legitimacy.

After all, even though the Democratic party nominated a liberal anti-war candidate over a more moderate establishment candidate this year, and the Republicans turned to a maverick with a reputation for bi-partisanship, the Democratic candidate is ahead in practically every battleground state that George Bush won in 2004.

How quickly times have changed. Whereas John Kerry was swiftboated in 2004, Obama (like Reagan) is developing Teflon powers as he continues to ride his surge in the polls despite stories about Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and ACORN. When terrorism was issue number one, people preferred a Republican president; but when the economy becomes issue number one, people prefer a Democratic president.

This is why Sarah Palin’s charge that “‘spreading the wealth‘ sounds a little like socialism” isn’t getting much traction. Spreading the wealth sounds like sharing the wealth, and these days such thoughts aren’t all that unpopular. After all, the Bush administration’s decision to obtain equity stakes in several private banks in return for a liquidity injection isn’t exactly laissez faire.

Culturally, the country appears to have moved on from those culture wars we heard so much about just four years ago. Just this year, the California and Connecticut Supreme Courts’ decisions to legalize same-sex marriage and the lackluster response from the conservative community indicates the shifting cultural tectonics. Abortion isn’t such a hot button issue this year either. Anti-abortion Catholics have endorsed Obama in significant numbers. If anything, McCain’s selection of a running mate who will not make an exception to her pro-life position for rape and incest reveals a campaign completely in illusion about where the country is culturally. McCain’s contempt for the “health” exception for women will seriously damage his chances with women.

We also see the ideological shift in cross-party endorsements for Obama. Breaking a century and a half year old tradition, the Chicago Tribune has endorsed Barack Obama. Christopher Buckley’s defection is both substantially and symbolically powerful, as were the endorsements of Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. And now Colin Powell has joined the bandwagon, characterizing Obama as a “transformational” leader. The last time we saw such language being used to describe a potential president was during the landslide and realigning elections of 1932 and 1980.

In the days to come, Republicans will push back to insist that this is still a “center-right” country - as Karl Rove and Charles Krauthhammer have done - and they will try to remind Americans that Democratic control of all branches of government may not be a good idea. But if the result of the White House race is still unclear, no one doubts that the Democrats will strengthen their majorities in both the House and the Senate. Average Joe, the median independent voter has moved to the Left of Plumber Joe, the median Republican voter. It may be time to excavate “liberal” and “liberalism” from the dictionary of political incorrectness.

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I’ve blogged a bit about the upcoming election. Tonight’s final Presidential Debate will most likely focus on the economy (Rightfully so considering the DJII’s 733 point drop, the fact that people are losing their jobs left and right, and that states, like Massachusetts, are facing unprecedented budget deficits). However, as educators, it’s important [...]

I missed the presidential debate last night - I chose to go to church to help my pastor celebrate his 21st preaching anniverary and receive some good preaching instead. I already know who I'm voting for, anyway. The other candidate is only showing me that I'm making a good choice. I'm disappointed in those who are choosing not to vote just because the candidate they want isn't a contender for the presidency. What does that say about our country?

Really, I'm ready for the election to come and go so we can vote our next pres in. I'm ready for a change. Am I the only one?

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 reflects on last Friday’s debate. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

In the first presidential debate on Friday night, Senator McCain tried repeatedly to cast Senator Obama as a naive lightweight who does not understand foreign policy. Seven times, McCain laid the charge that Obama just doesn’t get it.

-”Senator Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.”
-”And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy…”
-”What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand is that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone …”
-”I don’t think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power.”
-”If we adopted Senator Obama’s set date for withdrawal, then that will have a calamitous effect in Afghanistan and American national security interests in the region. Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand there is a connection between the two.”
-”Again, a little bit of naivete there. He doesn’t understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia.”
-”Senator Obama still doesn’t quite understand – or doesn’t get it — that if we fail in Iraq, it encourages al Qaeda.”

In schools, in the boardroom, even around the kitchen table, people tend to prove their knowledge by proving what they think to be true rather than by attacking their interlocutors for their failure to understand. McCain was deploying a peculiar form of persuasion that we see often in our politics: he was trying to make a self-referential claim by an other-referential jab. By calling Obama naive he was trying to imply that he was not. Since it is bad taste in politics (as in real life) to be a self-professed know-it-all, it was, McCain probably thought, a classier act to simply dismiss Obama as naive and allow the conclusion that he understood foreign policy better to follow.

Yet this was exactly the failed strategy that Al Gore used against George Bush in their presidential debates in 2000. Although some pundits thought that Al Gore was scoring debate points, many viewers came away thinking that he was a condescending know-it-all.

Even the most artful rhetorician of our time, President Ronald Reagan, had to strike the right balance of tone and humor to successfully get away with his “there you go again” rejoinder. This well executed line in his debate with President Carter in 1980 was one of the defining moments of that campaign. But it gained traction only because there was a growing consensus in the electorate that the decades-long liberal formula for solving the country’s economic woes was obsolete and in need of overhaul. “Do you still not get it” only works when the audience has already gotten it and moved on to newer solutions, leaving one’s interlocutor alone in the dustheap of history.

The problem is that in 2008, Obama is not alone in his views. There are significantly more voters tired of George Bush’s unilateralism, his hard-headed focus on the war on terrorism in Iraq, and his refusal to negotiate with rogue nations than there are voters who would prefer to stay his course. Unlike in 1980 when the country was moving to the political right, this year, many Independents will be apt to wonder if it is McCain who still doesn’t get it.

Senator McCain would do well to remember that the primary season is over and he needs to stop speaking only to his base if he wants to narrow Obama’s lead in the polls. The strategy of calling one’s debate partner naive (a euphemism for a fool) does not often get one extra points from neutral bystanders, independent voters. If Republicans were, like McCain, exasperated on Friday night with their perception that Obama just wouldn’t see the obvious, McCain probably appeared condescending to Independents with the forced grins by which he greeted Obama’s alleged displays of naivete. McCain needs to stop harping on the charge that Obama doesn’t get it but start proving that HE gets it - that many Independents and Democrats are looking to restore the country’s relationship with the rest of the world, that there are many Americans who see the war in Iraq as a foreign policy tangent to the brewing problems in Afghanistan. Maybe Senator Obama doesn’t get it. But do you, Senator McCain?

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For close to eight years I have watched George Bush piss away a comfortable surplus and plunge us into a huge deficit; fritter away decades of goodwill overseas; use outright lies to launch an endless war; display callous disregard to fellow Americans during natural disasters; play cowboy while our economy sank into the mud; and exude contempt and disinterest for those concerned about this small planet we call home.

All the while he has argued for a smaller role for government — at least, in his own country. He’s more than happy to meddle in other countries, especially where oil is involved. (Darfur? He can’t be bothered with that.) He’s a typical fortunate son — and don’t let that down-home-folksy posturing or fake-Southern-accent fool you; he was born in (then) oh-so-wealthy New Haven (CT, not TX) and as a young man attended Andover (MA, not TX), followed by Yale and Harvard, plus a cushy detour in the Guard.

Oh, and for those of you unfamiliar with the military-industrial complex, what we have overseas is not just a few tent cities with troops heating up cans of beanie-weenie over an open fire. We’ve set up a second country in Iraq — a massive, contractor-run world — and you’re paying for it, endlessly. (I am of the belief that we can’t just depart overnight — what we break can’t be that easily repaired — meaning that we’re going to keep paying for it.)

Now we’re being told to sign off on a huge blank check to Wall Street, hurry-hurry-hurry! (Jon Stewart did a brilliant play-by-play comparing the rush into Iraq with the rush to sign this package.) Oh, and of course, it’s a plan that the GOP insists has a “smaller role for government” than the one originally proposed, which at least injected some adult supervision and sanity into a government bailout.

I understand people who are miffed at the unfairness of the government bailing out homeowners who got in over their head. I don’t feel that level of anger, maybe because more than once I’ve been tempted to spend beyond my means.  The money was easy, and besides, everyone was doing it. What saved me was first, a partner who shares my values and encourages us to make wise choices, and second, a book, Your Money or Your Life, that rescued me from a period of poor financial management in my late 20s and early 30s.

I live a life where Starbucks is a treat when I’m traveling, lunch in a restaurant is the exception, and I am allergic to paying full-price for clothes. I don’t live entirely debt-free, but when I suddenly had to buy a car this summer, I was able to pay for half of it right on the spot (and you all know I wrestled with the devil — I actually filled out the paperwork for a far more expensive car, and then drove to another lot and made a very sensible purchase). I have a small student loan from my MFA I am paying down with double-payments every month.

I could go on — our idea of an adventure is to lunch on the free snacks at CostCo — but you get the drill. The key here is that it’s not like my income prevented me from going wild (even though it should have). When we house-shopped, we — a minister and a librarian — “qualified” for a house far above our means, and it took strong personal discipline to buy a house that made sense for us, rather than what we saw people buying. It wasn’t just mortgage credit; today I could buy a vacation home with the combined limits of my (paid-off-monthly) credit cards.

I had bad house-envy in this area for a while — I kept wondering how so many people could afford those fancy homes. O.k., now I know the answer: they couldn’t. We’ve been living in the real world, and they have not. Our house may be on the small side, but it’s beautiful and comfortable and in a wonderful neighborhood (and we put a significant “down” on it). If it ends up we can’t sell it for a while (though prices in Tallahassee have not plunged the way they have in the rest of Florida), someone at FAM or in the legislature or working at FSU will enjoy it as a rental. If it stayed empty for a while, we could tighten our belts yet more and survive.

I got an uneasy feeling other people don’t live like us some time ago, when someone at another Place Of Work commented that due to an odd pay schedule, some of his co-workers would be tightening their belts while they waited for paychecks. He didn’t mean entry-level support staff; he meant middle-class workers driving late-model cars, living in commodious homes, and lunching out daily. I thought, are these people living paycheck-to-paycheck?

But my point here is that regardless if bailing out homeowners is “unfair,” if it saves the economy from a complete crash, so be it. I would strongly recommend we make it hard for people to buy beyond their means in the future, and there need to be some cold splashes of reality for a few folks. Yet what we cannot afford to do is give unfettered rein to the jokers who got us in this pickle in the first place.  Nor can we make their exit from financial management comfortable and easy while the Americans they exploited are struggling to cope with reentry into the real world.

Since Reagan was president, Americans have absorbed the muddled message that less government means more money in their pockets. That has been true — for the very wealthy, and for the profligate Wall Street pirates making merry with our money (q.v. this YouTube clip of the Keating 5 — remember the S&L scandal? Remember McCain’s complicity?).  For the rest of us, this radical deregulation has led to a severe financial crisis where people believe they have more money in their pockets — only instead of the financiers complict in this folie a deux teetering on office ledges, they’re negotiating posh exit packages.

It’s time common sense prevailed in Washington.  We need calm, poised leadership, not hucksterish posturing. (Don’t even get me started on McCain canceling the debate — have you seen him side-by-side with Obama? Of course he’s avoiding the debate!) We need to take action, and it should be sooner than later, but what we don’t need is for Bush’s going-away gift to be a blank check for his moneyed cronies. We need to help America, not put a stake in its heart.

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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 Palin’s nomination. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

John McCain’s campaign has turned a 7 point deficit into a 4 point lead according to the new USA Today/Gallup poll. This post-convention bump did not come from McCain’s acceptance speech, which only received an “excellent” rating from 15% of those polled, compared to the 35% Obama received. The bump came from Sarah Palin. Here is the poll’s most important result: before the convention, Republicans by 47%-39% were less enthusiastic than usual about voting. Now, they are more enthusiastic by 60%-19%.

The new McCain campaign message is that change is about reforming Washington, aided in no small part by a Number 2 that has developed/created quite a reputation for reform. This new configuration appears to be overshadowing Obama’s definition that change requires a change in party control of the White House, because it has tapped into the anti-Washington sentiment felt among the Republican base.

Palin is running not as the back-up plan (as most vp candidates have), but as right-hand woman, and this is why Barack Obama took the risk of appearing unpresidential today by attacking Sara Palin directly himself. But Obama’s response - “You can’t just make stuff up” - sounded like a petulant kid crying foul rather than an effective counter-punch. As the campaign fumbles for a working riposte, it will become clear that the answer was always right before their eyes. By an ironic twist of fate, Hillary Clinton, though unsuccessful in her own presidential bid, has become the queen and kingmaker. Sarah Palin would not have risen from political obscurity into national prominence but for the schism generated by Clinton’s candidacy within the Democratic party. Yet Joe Biden cannot perform the role of attack dog as viscerally as he would if Palin were a man, and so ironically, Clinton will have to be dispatched to play this traditionally vice-presidential role. The question is whether the media will give Clinton the time of day now that the primary season is decidedly over.

Safe for the October surprise still to be discovered, the tectonics of the match-up are now mostly settled. With the VPs now selected, two previously toss-up states have moved into the “leaning” category: PA has moved in Obama’s direction because of Biden, and MO has moved in McCain’s direction because of Palin. The only vice-presidential debate sceduled on Oct 2 will be more critical than the first of three presidential debates on September 26. There’s been a lot of talk of Gallup polls conducted immediately after the conventions only getting it right fifty percent of the time, but less acknowledged is the fact that by the first week of October - the week the vp candidates shall debate - these polls have gotten it right almost every time since 1952. On October 2, Biden and Palin will have their one chance to get it right for their respective campaigns.

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Following from Thomas Dixon’s previous very popular post for OUPblog, he has very kindly agreed to write another article for us. Here he reflects on the recent interviews conducted with the two Presidential hopefuls at the Saddleback ‘Civil Forum on the Presidency’ in terms of Christianity as an altruistic or individualistic faith. Thomas Dixon is Senior Lecturer in History at Queen Mary, University of London, and is the author of Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction and The Invention of Altruism.

There has been an outbreak of altruism in the race for US President. During interviews with the influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren at the Saddleback ‘Civil Forum on the Presidency’, Barack Obama and John McCain spoke about their selfless motives for seeking to become the most powerful man on earth. Both Presidential candidates had done their homework. They knew what their interviewer and his congregation wanted to hear. Warren’s multi-million-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, begins with the words, ‘This is not about you.’

Whether Christianity is in fact a religion of altruism, rather than individualism, is an interesting question. Historically both believers and skeptics have recognized the self-interested character of Christian teaching. When Jesus told the rich young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor, this was for the good of the young man – so that he would have ‘riches in heaven’ – rather than for the good of the poor. Oscar Wilde approvingly described Jesus as ‘the first individualist in history’. And Obama and McCain both told Rick Warren that being a Christian meant that they were, as individuals, saved from their sins, forgiven, redeemed. But the keynote of the Saddleback Forum, reflecting Warren’s own interpretation of Christianity, was self-denial rather than self-fulfillment, sacrifice rather than salvation.

So, how do the two candidates’ versions of Christian altruism compare? John McCain, whose sacrifices in Vietnam are well known, stated he wanted to ‘inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest’. He wants Americans to ‘put their country first’. He also suggested that throughout their history ‘Americans have gone to all four corners of the world and shed blood in defense of someone else’s freedom’, and contrasted this with Russia’s allegedly self-interested pursuit of energy through its campaign in Georgia. This is implausible. American and Russian foreign policy are both clearly driven by national self-interest, and by the need to secure access to energy.

In fact, McCain’s ideology is a classic example of what scientists call ‘in-group altruism’ combined with ‘out-group hostility’. McCain’s Christian love does not extend to America’s enemies: ‘If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get bin Laden and bring him to justice.’ His criterion for risking American troops is not actually the defense of someone else’s freedom, but ‘when American national security interests are threatened’. And even in terms of domestic policy, McCain has not forgotten about individual self-interest altogether: ‘I want everyone to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.’

Obama, in contrast, favors higher taxes for the wealthy and empathy with the poor. His mother had always told him, he said, when he had been mean to anyone, to ‘imagine standing in their shoes, imagine looking through their eyes.’ This principle of empathy, he said, was what had ‘made America special’. ‘I think about my grandparents’ generation’, he went on, ‘coming out of the Depression, fighting World War Two. They were confronted with some challenges we can’t even imagine. If they were willing to make sacrifices on our behalf’, he concluded, ‘we should be able to make some sacrifices on behalf of the next generation.’

While McCain envisaged Americans exchanging self-interest for national interest, Obama seemed to be thinking of something a little broader – the responsibility of the current generation of humanity to the next. Obama’s echoing of the gospel precept, ‘whatever you do for the least of my brothers you do for me’, also had a different ring from McCain’s wish for everyone to get richer.

The advice Obama got from his mother immediately reminded me of one of the humorist Jack Handey’s aphorisms: ‘Before you criticize someone’, Handey said, ‘you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticize them, you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes.’ Handey’s surrealism hints at a serious point – altruism and empathy are often little more than an attractive veneer for low cunning and self-interest. Altruism is a favorite topic with scientists too. Whether they worry about the fact that we are driven by ‘selfish genes’ against which we need to rebel, as Richard Dawkins suggested in the 1970s, or think that altruism is in fact a ‘blessed misfiring’ that is built into those genes, as Richard Dawkins now maintains, no-one doubts that we all have evolved the ability to do good both for others and for ourselves. What is less obvious is whether it is better, overall, for me to pursue my own interest, on the theory that my health and happiness will be indirectly good for others too, or better for me to pursue the good of those others directly. The former is McCain’s favored approach, the latter Obama’s.

Although Presidential candidates’ paeans to self-sacrifice and altruism may ring hollow, perhaps politicians are simply telling us what we want to hear – that we, like them, are motivated by a humanitarian love of others, not a selfish love of lower taxes or cheaper energy. Voters may be happy to accept this sort of flattery but I think they should pause when they hear politicians celebrating self-sacrifice – whether in the alleged interest of America or of the wider world – and ask themselves what price they and others are really being asked to pay, and for whose ultimate good. It is because it sounds so wholesome that altruism can be such a dangerous ideology.

You can read a full transcript of Rick Warren’s interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain, which took place on 16 August 2008, on the CNN website.

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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 reflects on the role of race in our upcoming Presidential elections.  See his previous OUPblogs here.

And so it begins. Of course race was going to become an issue this year. It was never possible that the first competitive African-American candidate for president, Barack Obama, would face no obstacle in terms of his racial eligibility for the Oval Office. The only question is how race would rear its ugly and inevitable head.

Already a pattern has emerged. The minority candidate is always accused of playing the minority card. Senator John McCain was quick to throw this accusation last Thursday. This was a response to Obama’s

claim the day before in Missouri in which he charged the Republicans for trying to scare voters by questioning his patriotism and “funny name” and by pointing out he doesn’t “look like those other presidents on those dollar bills.” The question of who really was playing the race card can only be answered in the eyes of the beholder. But let it be said that allusions to Obama’s otherness have been made on both sides from earlier on in the campaign. In naming the “race card” at this particular moment in the campaign and not earlier, the McCain campaign is not just retaliating or reacting to Obama’s actions or words, it is strategizing.

Remember when the Obama camp was accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the gender card? In some degree, Obama is getting the first taste of the medicine Hillary Clinton had to swallow during the primaries. Accuse a minority of playing a minority card, and s/he is dealt a double blow: supporting members of the majority are reminded of the candidate’s minority status and his/her electability problem; at the same time, opposing members of the majority have their stereotype of a whining minority candidate reinforced. When Hillary Clinton was accused of playing the gender card, some of her supporters were reminded that there are some sexists out there who would never vote for her (the “polarizing,” “unelectable” narrative about the Clinton campaign) no matter what, and so cast their votes in favor of Obama. At the same time, those who were already against her strengthened their view that she was a whining, sore loser.

Obama suffers an analogously double hit with the charge that he has played the race card. Independent general election voters are reminded that race is still a salient factor in American politics and some of these voters may see no value in throwing away their vote for an unelectable, polarizing candidate. At the same time, those opposed to Obama are vindicated in their belief that he is an angry race-baiter.

The dominant strategy for a majority candidate, then, is always to accuse a minority candidate of playing a minority (gender or racial) card. Whether or not the card is actually being played, it always benefits the majority candidate to say that it is. Remind enough people that that a minority is a minority, and the faithful lose heart, while the bigots (those who would reject a candidate purely on the basis of his/her minority status) gain ground.

For a majority candidate to not acknowledge his privilege and to deploy a strategy that is asymmetrically available only to him is to engage in the lowest kind of politics. Race is already going to be an explosive issue this year without politicians stoking it. A gentleman acknowledges an underserved advantage when he possesses one. I urge the McCain campaign to take on Obama’s campaign on higher ground.

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Elvim 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 recent weeks, some political commentators have observed that Senator Barack Obama is all talk, but no substance. Where his supporters see an orator of the highest order, his detractors see only a smooth talker.

Flash back to the 1980s, and we had the same bifurcated response to Ronald Reagan. Whereas some saw profundity and deep meaning in his speeches, Reagan’s detractors heard only vacuous platitudes. Indeed, Reagan’s supporters even used the same words as some liberals do today to describe Obama’s “soaring oratory.” How did Reagan score with the Reagan Democrats? By being all things to all people. The Obamacans in this year’s elections are being swayed by a parallel strategy. Talk a lot, but mean nothing.

Consider Obama’s response this week in Georgia when he addressed charges that he had been “flip flopping” between his positions : “I’m not just somebody who is talking about government as the solution to everything. I also believe in personal responsibility. I also believe in faith.” the Senator sagely declared.

But who doesn’t believe in faith? Such rhetoric misses the point, ending rather than initiating debate - a strategy consummately deployed by President Bush in selling “Operation Iraqi Freedom” by exploiting our universal and creedal belief in liberty. The question is how we should balance our respect for the identity and autonomy of religious charities with our belief in the separation of church and state. And the question is whether freedom in Iraq can and should be bought with the sacrifice of our freedoms at home and the suspension of some of our constitutional principles. By design, Obama’s and Bush’s words elided these difficult, but pressing questions.

“I also believe in personal responsibility” are also coded words Obama’s speechwriters designed to woo conservative audiences without explicitly repudiating the liberal point of view that governmental programs are the other side of the rhetorical equation that ought to have been addressed. Reverend Jesse Jackson was understandingly aggravated. Yet while Jackson has apologized for his crude verbal gaffe, we have yet to take Obama to task for his rhetorical sleight of hand because this is what we have come to expect from political candidates seeking the highest office of the land.

We are not going to face the complex problems of our time if our would-be leaders continue to take the rhetorical path of least resistance, to buy our assent without any content. To say nothing even when one talks a lot is to fulfill the rhetorical formula for, literally, empty promises. There were times in this election season when Obama rose above the anti-intellectual fray, just like there were times when Ronald Reagan and George Bush used the bully pulpit to educate rather than to merely seduce the American people. This year, when conservatives see in a liberal political candidate the same rhetorical flaws as what liberals saw in Reagan and George Bush, perhaps we will come closer to recognizing a systemic flaw in our political system, and it is the Anti-intellectual Presidency.

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Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America.  In this article, Zelinsky argues that Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform, that this is a healthy development for American democracy, and that the current system of campaign finance reform should be replaced by a simplified disclosure regime.

The most important event of the 2008 presidential campaign may already have occurred: The major party nominees have publicly confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform. Such reform has imposed increasingly complex and stringent limitations on the contributions of political donors and on the expenditures of political campaigns.

Senator Obama had been an outspoken apostle of campaign finance reform. At the outset of his presidential effort, Senator Obama had proclaimed his commitment to accept public financing and its accompanying expenditure restrictions for his general election campaign. He has now turned 180 degrees. Senator Obama will now eschew public financing and its attendant limits and will instead fund his general election effort with private donations to escape those limits.

Senator McCain’s change of heart is more complex but even more dramatic. Senator McCain was the prime Republican sponsor of the most recent tightening of federal restrictions on campaigns and donors, the eponymous McCain-Feingold Act. While he will accept public financing in the fall, Senator McCain’s supporters are actively and openly exploiting every legal loophole they can find to permit private contributors to assist his candidacy beyond the restrictions imposed by that Act. The irony is palpable. Senator McCain’s supporters are now assiduously seeking to erode the very constraints on donors and campaigns which Senator McCain had championed.

It is easy to criticize Senators Obama and McCain for their inconsistency. I suggest, however, that there is a broader significance to these events. Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform. We should now kill this complex and unfair regulatory scheme. American democracy will be healthier without the myriad restrictions which limit Americans’ ability to contribute to the candidates of their choice.

The fundamental premises upon which campaign finance reform rests are false: Money in politics is a bad thing which can and ought to be limited legislatively. On the contrary, for many Americans, a financial contribution is today the only meaningful way, besides voting, they can assist the candidates they support. In any event, campaign contributions cannot be controlled fairly and effectively. Another form of Prohibition has failed.

Consider the simpler era in which I grew up. Working on political campaigns along with other volunteers, my friends and I would meet at local party headquarters and fan out to distribute bumper stickers and campaign buttons to our neighbors. It seems quaint because, in retrospect, it was.

Contrast this low budget, Ozzie-and-Harriet world with the consultant-driven, TV-saturated campaigns which constituted primary season 2008. In these campaigns, the citizen-volunteers have largely been subordinated to the full-time, paid, professional operatives who ran these campaigns. In this environment, a financial contribution is, besides voting, the most meaningful form of support many, probably most, Americans can make to the candidate they support.

Moreover, the attempt to limit the influence of money by law, propounded as a means of leveling the political playing field, has instead reinforced the political power of the celebrities in our celebrity-based culture. During the 2008 primary campaign, both Oprah Winfrey and Chuck Norris provided enormously valuable assistance to the Obama and Huckabee campaigns, generating publicity worth hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars for the candidates they supported. None of this celebrity assistance is capped by McCain-Feingold, despite the obvious value of that assistance.

In contrast, if a non-celebrity citizen favoring a competing candidate sought to counteract celebrity-generated publicity by donating equivalent funds to purchase offsetting advertising, that citizen would have violated the law. If, for example, a supporter of Governor Romney sought to counteract Mr. Norris’s efforts via a campaign donation of $2,500 (a tiny fraction of Mr. Norris’s effective but unregulated contribution to Governor Huckabee), that Romney supporter broke the law which limited him to a $2,300 contribution. Campaign finance reform, it turns out, is just for the little people.

It is unsurprising that this system is now in disarray. The current system, with its complex contribution limits, is overly-complicated and unfair. These complex and inequitable rules should be replaced by a simplified regime which permits all campaign contributions without limit but which requires contributions to be immediately and accurately disclosed.

Whether one believes that campaign finance reform like McCain-Feingold was a noble idea which failed or was an unwise approach from the beginning, Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of that approach. We should now move from the currently dysfunctional system to a simplified regime which permits contributions without limit, which requires complete and accurate disclosure of those contributions, and which no longer puts our political life in the hands of Oprah and Chuck.

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David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here, to read more posts by them click here.  In the post below they bid farewell to Mike Huckabee.

On Tuesday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee finally gave up on his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination. Let us be among the first to say good riddance. (more…)

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This coming Monday the interview media circus for Stardust begins, or it does for me anyway. So I went in to Minneapolis yesterday and got a haircut from Wendy at Hair Police, so I will look less like a man with a honey badger growing on his head in the photographs, then I nipped down to DreamHaven and signed stacks of books for them (some that people had ordered and some so they could sell them over at their www.Neilgaiman.net shop). The circus starts Monday and then, with a few outbreaks of Beowulf on the way, it barely stops until about August the 3rd. Argh.

Let's see... Actor Doug Jones talks about me and Miss Maddy visiting the Hellboy set over at his blog, and the day the three of us went to Margaret Island. His blog is just like him. http://dougjones.wordpress.com/2007/07/08/i-think-im-still-alive/

(Here's Maddy and Doug -- sans Abe or Faun or Silver Surfer makeup -- on the bridge the Sunday of fountains and Viggo Mortenson, with Margaret Island in the background. The next time we saw Doug he had shaved off most of his hair, because it's more comfortable, and cooler, to have your head encased in latex if you look like a marine recruit.)

Film Ick reviews the script to Hellboy 2 at http://www.filmick.co.uk/2007/07/all-hellboy-2-you-can-handle-for-one.html.
From the bits they quote, it's obviously an earlier draft of the script than what's being shot currently in Budapest, but you definitely get the flavour. I enjoyed the first Hellboy film, but didn't think it was a major Guillermo Del Toro work. I'm pretty sure, from all I've seen and from reading the script, that the second film will be one of those sequels that improves and deepens and is seriously better than the first film in the sequence, rather than being one of those films that gets knocked out quickly to try and get people to buy tickets for something not quite as good as the thing they liked the first time around. Guillermo sees it as an upbeat, comic-book-based companion piece to Pan's Labyrinth, anyway.

...

I keep meaning to write about, or at least link to, Heather McDougal's Cabinet of Wonders

http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/

which is fast becoming one of my favourite stopping off points on the web. It's a blog of essays and pictures of things I either know a bit about and wish I knew more, or about things I know nothing about and really really needed to. Everything from Ossuaries to astrolabes, automata, orreries and shadow-puppets, and even short films of stop motion beetles, like this one.

Start back in March and come forward, or just poke around the coolness...

And not far behind it for sheer interesting stuff, if a little more narrowly focussed, is

http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/

yesterday's future, today.

The link stolen from Eddie Campbell's blog, 1947 comic artists drawing their most famous characters blindfolded... http://a-hole-in-the-head.blogspot.com/2007/07/eyes-wide-shut-in-1947-life-magazine.html

And finally, for when you need a complete trilogy of movies condensed into one tiny pill (like those retro-future "instant roast beef dinner" pills from Just Imagine):

http://xkcd.com/c254.html

Hi!! Well it's my and dad's last night in Budapest!! This will be my last blog post for a while, but I think I will be doing some more guest blogging while we are at the San Diego Comic Convention, and/or for the Stardust Premiere. Today I had to say goodbye to all the friends that I made on the Hellboy set! I am not going to name them all because I might leave somebody out and then I would feel super de duper bad... but I do want to say "bye" to Gabi the script supervisor because she was so nice and gave me a pretty ring!! (And she reads this, so she better be smiling to herself right now.)

I had such a fun time blogging for the past two weeks, and I'm really, really glad that so many people enjoyed it! Dad did a book signing tonight and Doug and I went down to keep him company and tons of people said they loved the stuff I was doing. My father dearest also got a lot of e-mails from people we know as well as people we don't know, saying things like they really, really liked it, and that I was a great writer, and I should get my own blog! Well I'm glad you liked it, thanks for saying I'm a great writer, and no, I'm not going to get my own blog anytime soon so you should just keep reading this one and maybe I will pop up here and there. Keep a lookout for the Hellboy movie, and be sure to buy the DVD! Ok, I guess I should also thank everyone on the set that was helpful and were really kind! (Especially people whose middle or last names begin with "A", *wink wink,* you'll get it if I've talked to you about that...) Hungary is a great place and I hope I can come here lots in da future!



A picture of me saying goodbye! Sorry about the hand-writing... It's very sloppy because I had to write it backwards!

Thank you soooooo much for reading this everyone.

From,
Maddy Gaiman