Biden

Sorry I've been on a bit of a break, to end shortly, but if you really want to know my opinion of Barack Obama's VP choice, this may help:



Conservatives pray for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE). Seems like he's thoughtful and genuine with regular citizens one-on-one as well.

Most of all, it's great casting. What a great personality to have in the White House with Obama, coming over to hang in the Oval Office, getting the latest mission from his boss, then opening the doors for him to succeed.

Biden's smart, candid, seasoned, well-liked. He'll attack McCain on policy and maybe go up against Mitt Romney.

What's not to like?

Hothead

The Obama campaign is clearly trying out a theme that they can develop next week: McCain is a hothead.

There's evidence of this in his personal dealings, his Senate dealings, and in how he sprung up on the Georgia issue like he already thought he was President (albeit with an advisor being paid that country). There's serious talk of a McCain Presidency being a series of foreign policy crises of his own making thanks to his Cold War-era rhetoric -- "hysteria-based foreign policy."

I think the key for Obama and the Dems is to link McCain's kneejerk neoconservatism to the current Administration, to the ideology that got us all into the Iraq War and radically diminished our prestige and heft in the world in the first place. It truly can be the worst of both worlds -- bad judgment of now standard Republican neoconservatism, heightened by McCain's own disastrous trigger-happy tendencies. Essentially it's turning that media-loved maverick label against him.

And how hard can it be, when McCain endorses a new military draft with one on-the-spot answer in a town hall appearance?

Serious

Time to get serious, folks. I you really want the GOP out of the entire Executive branch, if you want Supreme Court justices that won't roll back rights, if you want a foreign policy that's not destructive to U.S. global interests, if you want a President who doesn't believe that you're only rich at earning $5,000,000/year, if you want a President who knows how to use email and the Internet to glean information for himself and create new economic opportunities, if you want a President who's not in the pocket of the big huge oil companies, then it's time to stop bemoaning this or that little disagreement you may have about some position or tactic in the Obama campaign.

Because if the new Reuters/Zogby poll is right, McCain's negative attacks are working and he's moved into the lead.

Most Sublime

The most sublime show on television right now is Mad Men. Now four episodes into Season 2, I think I've figured out what it's about, what the whole period/historical/cultural anthropology thing means, what they're doing this season and how it plays into the overall series. Why they're jumping years to take us to 1970 by the end of Season 5.

The key to figuring it out is that this season Don Draper is trying to walk the path of righteousness. He's learned his lesson about dalliances, yet there's a new affair that's pursued him, with Jimmy's wife. It doesn't make him happy, but he doesn't say no, because as Peggy so cogently put it in season 1, these are people who want to see things they haven't seen before.

Don reads a book of Frank O'Hara poetry, sneaks out to Antonioni's La Notte, and comes up with the big ideas that no one else at Sterling Cooper could ever think of.

Don's clearly dissatisfied with his conformist consumer life, but unlike last season he isn't watching from a distance, he's trying to figure it out, trying to break out of the box that he (and everyone around him) is trapped in.

In this way, Don is exactly like Peggy, determined to escape her Catholic borough past, grappling with her familial ties. When Don calls the "creative" staff into his office on a Sunday in tonight's episode, it underlined the point that although "creative" is as far as they're allowed to go in the world of their office and maybe as far as Don is willing to deign himself, Don is an artist, and Peggy might turn out to be one herself.

Seen through this prism, everything else in Mad Men makes sense. Of course these men and women are mad. They're trapped in their own social constructs, prisoners of the tropes of their day, the culture for which they as adults have as much responsibility now as anyone.

I imagine that we're going to see Don go all-out by the end of even season 4, divorced, on the West Coast, blowing doobs and designing his own house, maybe with a short beard, long hair. Confident in the art world setting. Comfortable with a surfboard and modern jazz.

It's the nexus of the creators' interest in the characters. It makes everything in Season 1 look like planting. It takes Jay Gatsby into the Jackson Pollack era.

The greatest creation of the artist Don Draper is, of course, turning Dick Whitman into himself.

Astronauts and Christians

Nice to see Obama's space policy endorsed by former astronauts John Glenn and Ben Nelson:

Two well-known space pioneers on Sunday endorsed Senator Barack Obama's space program, which calls for lengthening the life of the Space Shuttle so that the U.S. is not without its own ride to the International Space Station.

Former Ohio Senator John Glenn and current U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, both former astronauts, said flying the shuttle beyond 2010 may now be critical in light of Russia's recent invasion of the Republic of Georgia.

Just in case you thought a new Cold War would be Republican-only?

Meanwhile, Barack's been talking to influential evangelical voters, which helps kill the Muslim smear and also show, in this clip, his toughness and rectitude.

There's a lot of fear right now that McCain will somehow win. And that is always a danger -- Obama, by historical measures, is an underdog until November 5th, no matter how far ahead he may be in the polls.

But Obama has always been a strong finisher. In the only truly competitive campaign of his political career, for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2000, John McCain was completely outflanked by Karl Rove and George W. Bush.

Obama didn't need to be pounding McCain last month as much as he needs to starting with his nomination acceptance speech a week from Thursday. He has to send the delegates out of Colorado, the organizers, even the news media fired up and completely ready to go.

Obama's been the best at pacing himself, storing energy where he can and unleashing moving political ideas and spectacle. He has a great shot at bringing all but the least forgiving Clinton supporters into the fold. After all, there will be openings on the Court.

I guess the bottom line is, do you trust him to run the best Democratic Convention since 1932?

Two Guys

Two topflight comic/political/big influential voice guys in two pieces.

Jon Stewart in the NY Times, "The Most Trusted Man in America?" by no less than revered literary critic Michiko Kakutani, some smart praise from various sources, some reveal on how they think and write and build the show, interesting to read at this obviously historical juncture. And mention that he gets possibly obscure authors huge book sales bumps.

My favorite section is the nuts & bolts:

Offices for “The Daily Show” occupy a sprawling loftlike space that combines the energy of a newsroom with the laid-back vibe of an Internet start-up: many staff members wear jeans and flip-flops, and two amiable dogs wander the hallways. The day begins with a morning meeting where material harvested from 15 TiVos and even more newspapers, magazines and Web sites is reviewed. That meeting, Mr. Stewart said, “would be very unpleasant for most people to watch: it’s really a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset, and the rest of the day is spent trying to mask or repress that through whatever creative devices we can find.”

The writers work throughout the morning on deadline pieces spawned by breaking news, as well as longer-term projects, trying to find, as Josh Lieb, a co-executive producer of the show, put it, stories that “make us angry in a whole new way.” By lunchtime, Mr. Stewart (who functions as the show’s managing editor and says he thinks of hosting as almost an afterthought) has begun reviewing headline jokes. By 3 p.m. a script is in; at 4:15, Mr. Stewart and the crew rehearse that script, along with assembled graphics, sound bites and montages. There is an hour or so for rewrites — which can be intense, newspaper-deadlinelike affairs — before a 6 o’clock taping with a live studio audience.

They go through the news and only then do they start putting together the script -- probably between 8 and 15 minutes of material written and delivered by 3:00pm. Is that, like, six hours? Less? There's often some prepared feature material, with Stewart just doing the wraparound, but those take time to vet through production as well.

I'm impressed, especially recalling how great the show ran when I saw it live two years this past June. (Anderson Cooper was the guest, but Samantha Bee did the green screen stand-up, hilarious.)

The second piece is by Michael Moore, the second guy, who's had a huge impact on political discourse now about 20 years, two decades, opening up long festering discussions from corporate greed as the major factor in unemployment with Roger and Me to laying plan the health insurance crisis in this country recently with Sicko.

He's got a big post up on his site and in Rolling Stone called, "How The Democrats Can Blow It ...In Six Easy Steps" and it's a barnburner from the progressive wing. I'm not 100% in agreement with him on all the steps, but I'm behind the first and last ones big time. The list (without the detailed explanations):

1. Keep saying nice things about McCain.

2. Pick a running mate who is a conservative white guy or a general or a Republican.

3. Keep writing speeches for Obama that make him sound like a hawk.

4. Forget that this was a historic year for women.

5. Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter.

6. Denounce me!

On that last one:

Obama, at some point, might be asked this question: "Michael Moore has endorsed you. But he recently said (fill in the blank with some outrageously offensive line taken out of context). Will you still accept his endorsement, or do you denounce him?"

And he better denounce me, or they will tear him to shreds...

But of course Moore means the opposite:

...So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from — it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do. And many of them are the kind of crazy voters who have no problem voting for a Nader just to prove a point.

Elections have been lost by just 537 votes. I don't want that to happen to you.

So while I would hope and expect Obama not to denounce Mr. Moore's progressive voice, I do think he's making a threat. Even wrapped in a truth, it's somewhere between street corner ground-staking and blackmail. It's saying, loudly, in no uncertain terms, "I matter."

Programmings hours = feeding the beast, so Jon Stewart is essentially in a 4-day/week service industry. Michael Moore is an independent artist who doesn't have sponsors paying for his documentaries, he has the public. Two different influences on the public/commercial/political discourse.

Dogs

Our army trained the Georgian solders who invaded South Ossetia, starting the skirmish with Russia and Putin proved ready to escalate into a war. Another colossal miscalculation by Dick Cheney behind the throne of George Bush?

With Bush and McCain echoing their willfully oblivious "21st Century countries don't invade sovereign nations" line, and McCain's close adviser also Georgia's paid lobbyist in D.C., it all is starting to look a little color-coordinated. But both Bush and McCain are spreading the poor little Georgia meme, but even Fox television can't stop the truth from slipping through.

Meanwhile, the Administration that keeps on giving is getting yet another new investigation. Ron Suskind's allegations of Dick Cheney's forgery shop has our district's Rep., the awesome Henry Waxman, call his committee back early from summer break to dig in.

Drink up, George. It's almost over. Please end in a whimper, because I don't know if we can survive another bang.

Most Effective?

Is this the most effective video political ad this cycle?



Not made by a professional consultant. Succinct master narrative that's been with us all along: please, God, not 4 more years of Bush. If McCain can't escape that noose, his candidacy is over. And I don't see the "We are all Georgians" thing registering positively with Americans. Far more Americans are from Russian heritage than from that new country we can't find on the map.

We don't want more war. Bottom line. We want to heal, have needed to since 9/11, but the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld/Rove policies made that impossible. McCain claims maverick but it's not there in the votes. And that will be what kills him.

I have a VP prediction: the announcement will not come until the Convention. And it may even be the first night, and maybe Barack is there. At the very moment that everybody's cellphone goes off.

The cellphones will go off all across America, wherever anyone has texted VP to 62262. In homes and restaurants and campuses and streets.

They will go off in Denver. Both outside and inside the convention center. At the dais.

While someone very well regarded is speaking.

21st Century political theater -- imagine the feeling in the room. Imagine watching the reactions of all the delegates live on TV.

Just a thought.

Dangerous Candidate

It looks like the U.S. posturing in the Georgia debacle may ultimately be about -- surprise, surprise -- oil:

American policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep the country from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and gas wealth and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow’s control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days. The tug-of-war with Moscow was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest for dominance in the region...

...Now energy experts say that the hostilities between Russia and Georgia could threaten American plans to gain access to more of Central Asia’s energy resources at a time when booming demand in Asia and tight supplies helped push the price of oil to record highs.

So is it any surprise that presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain is in bed with Georgia, who's President Mikheil Saakashvili started the fighting in the first place with at least a silent nod from the U.S. -- if not more -- and is somehow yet to pay the price in the U.S. media? The name is Randy Schuenemann:

Randy Scheunemann earned about $70,000 serving as Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser between the January 2007 and May 15, 2008.

During the same period, the government of Georgia paid his firm $290,000 in lobbying fees...

...On April 17, McCain got on the phone with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili about Russian efforts to gain leverage over two of Georgia's troubled provinces. That same day, McCain issued a public statement condemning Russia and expressing strong support for the Georgian position.

And also on that same day, Georgia signed a new, $200,000 lobbying contract with Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, according to the Post.

Think there might be a conflict of interests? And with McCain always itching to start another Cold War with Russia (nostalgic for his youth?), he's escalating by sending campaign surrogates -- John thinks he can win the election on the basis of a new neocon revival against Russia.

But of all the quotes today about the conflict, this one takes the cake:



Make an embroidered pillow out of it: "In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations." Like the last five years in Iraq never happened.

Willful omission or yet another "senior moment?"

Both answers bode ill.

Obamacons

Are Obamacons the "Reagan Democrats" of 2008? Those conservatives fully backing Obama are growing and are certainly a promising factor for his candidacy. Populista has a great up-to-date summary with a list:

Former GOP Representative Jim Leach endorsed Obama today and kicked off the campaigns official Republicans for Obama effort...

"...It's been a very difficult thing for me because I've never endorsed a Democrat before...but sometimes in life you come to a juncture where it's very clear the national interest trumps party discipline - Jim Leach"

Hence the McCain campaign's fever to claim Obama somehow doesn't "put country first," as if McCain is the first Senator and Presidential candidate ever without personal ambition.

Populista's list goes on:

Also today Fairbanks, Alaska's Republican Mayor Jim Whitaker endorsed Obama.

Other Republicans who have endorsed Obama include:
-Tom Bernstein who went to Yale University with Bush and coowned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him
-Oregon's First District GOP Congressional Nominee Joel Haugen
-Reagan policy advisor Bruce Bartlett
-Delbert Spurlock, who was Assistant Secretary of the Army under Reagan
-ex Senator (and Governor) Lowell Weicker of Connecticut
-Tony Campell, a former GOP congressional candidate from Maryland
-Douglas Kmiec, a Republican who served in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan
-Dorothy Danforth Burlin, a lawyer who is the daughter of former U.S. Senator John Danforth
-Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Group

And, of course, ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI).

Obama's up in a very interesting way, the most credible poll being the one that doesn't prompt for an answer. From Chris Bowers:

Gallup just released a very useful poll, one that is, in fact, my favorite poll of the year. What makes this poll different from all other polls released this year is that it is open-ended, and does not include the names of any candidates or parties in the question. Thus, this poll measures hard support for each candidate, and also provides an accurate gauge of third-party support:

Gallup, August 7-10, 903 RVs, MoE 4
Obama: 45%
McCain: 38%
Nader: 1%
Barr: 1%
Clinton: 1%
Other: 2%
None / Won't Vote: 7%
Unsure: 6%

I'd take 45% hard support over 38%, a solid 7% lead, any day of an election cycle.

Georgia On My Mind

The NYTimes puts it straight:

The United States and Europe also need to take a hard look at their relationship with Russia going forward. Neither has protested loudly or persuasively enough as Mr. Putin has used Russia’s oil and gas wealth to blackmail its neighbors, throttled Russia’s free press and harassed and imprisoned opponents.

The Bush administration has made Mr. Putin’s job even easier, feeding nationalist resentments with its relentless drive for missile defense. The Europeans, who are far too dependent on Russian gas supplies, have deluded themselves into believing that they alone will be safe from Moscow’s bullying.

The U.S. is pretending it's tight with Georgia, but we're not showing up. The question is whether showing up is in our national interest or not, or is there another way. What are our objectives...and what are Russia's? Are there any good choices?

This guy's acting like he's looking for a fight:

His hard line has been derided as provocative, and possibly dangerous, by some so-called realist foreign policy experts, who warn that isolating Russia would do little to encourage it to change. But others, including neoconservatives who deem promoting democracy a paramount goal, see Mr. McCain’s position as principled, and prescient. Now, with Russia moving forcefully into Georgia as Mr. McCain seeks the presidency, his views are being scrutinized as never before through the prism of Russia’s invasion.

McCain and his advisor Robert Kagan are the same guys who got us into an unprovoked war in Iraq. Their judgment is bankrupt.

Or do you need more convincing:



Obama here:

The relationship between Russia and the West is long and complicated. There have been many turning points, for good and ill. This is another turning point. Let me be clear: we seek a future of cooperative engagement with the Russian government, and friendship with the Russian people. We want Russia to play its rightful role as a great nation - but with that role comes the responsibility to act as a force for progress in this new century, not regression to the conflicts of the past. That is why the United States and the international community must speak out strongly against this aggression, and for peace and security.

Wild in the streets.

Seriously

Russia has invaded neighboring Georgia, a lot of people getting hurt and killed, and will likely take it over. Our "President" had this to say:

"I was very firm with Vladimir Putin ... I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia," Bush told NBC Sports. "We strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia."

While he was doing this.

And this.

And this.

Seriously.

Matinee Idols

Neal Gabler has a great piece in Saturday's Los Angeles Times on how the McCain campaign and others have mistyped Obama as a rock star -- we're actually relating to him as a movie star:

All campaigns are movies now, consisting of competing narratives with competing stars. Part of Obama's appeal, as it was for the Kennedys, is that he has what all rising stars have. He has youth. He has good looks. He has charisma. He has an ability to spellbind. He has had a rapid ascent that makes him new and unfamiliar. He has, in this McLuhanesque age, unflappability that plays especially well on television. And as the biracial son of a single mother, he has a great personal story that provides a terrific vehicle for his role.

But, above all, Obama has something else that all great stars have -- he embodies a theme. Every great star is a walking idea. James Cagney demonstrated the power of sheer energy early in his career, and the way that energy could curdle later in his career. Cary Grant demonstrated the force of charm and quick-wittedness. Paul Newman demonstrated the limitations of self-interest and the redemption that comes with engagement outside oneself. Robert Redford demonstrated the deception of appearances. Barbra Streisand, in the immortal words of critic Pauline Kael, demonstrated that talent was beauty. That is what made these individuals stars. They incorporated ideas that mattered to us, that resonated with us.

Obama is a star in this sense too. As he reiterates endlessly, Obama brings idealism at a time when many Americans are despairing of making any headway against the problems the nation faces. Drawing on his own personal story of disadvantage that led to Columbia University, Harvard Law School and now to the Democratic nomination, Obama in his every gesture and utterance suggests that "Yes We Can." This idealism isn't inspiring adulation because Obama is already a star. Obama is a star precisely because he is inspiring. He is the anti-Bush, and what he's selling is hope.

Meanwhile, McCain's campaign with it's lobbyist for Georgia, now at war with Russia, is calling Obama, "bizarrely in sync with Moscow." Yep, same old red smear. Using this horrific humanitarian crisis as a tool for tactical gain. Immediately.

And what's happening inside the McCain campaign itself?

Out of his hearing, Mr. McCain is called the White Tornado by some people who have worked for him over the years. Throughout his presidential campaign, he has been the overseer of a kingdom of dissenting camps, unclear lines of command and an unsettled atmosphere that keeps aides constantly on edge.

Even now, after a shake-up that aides said had brought an unusual degree of order to Mr. McCain’s disorderly world in the last month, two of his pollsters are at odds over parts of the campaign’s message, while past and current aides have been trading snippy exchanges debating the wisdom of attack advertisements he has aimed at Mr. Obama.

Think how he runs his campaign might be a clue as to what kinds of Presidency a McCain Administration might be?

Regarding

Regarding the John Edwards affair, as this politician wasn't out selling hypocritical family values or God or any of those non-issues which make it so much more fun for Dems when a Republican is revealed for having done as he does but not as he says, I'd like to quote Bert Cooper, the fictional co-founder of the fictional 1960's advertising agency at the center of AMC's brilliant Mad Men, as he responded to the very truthful accusations by Pete Campbell about Don Draper's true identity:

"Who cares?"

And furthermore:

"This country was built and run by men with worse stories than whatever you've imagined here."

John McCain and his doppleganger Karl Rove are trying to turn this election on a fabrication about Barack Obama they want to shove down our throats and into our psyches, while the guy who blatantly cheated on and dumped his wife for a beer heiress, millionaire McCain's burgeoning bad judgment is revealed to again bode ill, having caused a huge loss of jobs in Ohio, and he's trying to chastise the Obama campaign for mentioning it -- a real issue.

And a real, true, character issue.

McCain is worthless now. Here John Edwards, the only candidate amongst both parties, over 15 of them, who put tackling U.S. poverty at the top of his agenda. Multi-millionaire McCain doesn't care, except in the abstract. When was the last time he left one of his eight houses, got out of his private plane, and actually helped a poor person build a house, maybe on a visit with Jimmy Carter. He's not some benign alternative to Obama -- he's the aging side of the American oligarchy, and if he's their front man this year, so be it -- he'll say anything he has to, allow his Rovian campaign to run any lowlife ad it wants to and say he's proud of it, he'll do his job to keep the lid on investigations, true change..and true growth.

Beyond anything else, this country needs to grow. It can only grow in a sustainable way with change.

Russia just invaded neighboring Georgia. I'd think I'll do as Elizabeth Edwards asked today, extraordinarily quick, forthright and free of self-pity. Her husband isn't running for anything right now. Let private citizens be private.

Years

Another blazing success of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove Administration's War on Terra:

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Rejecting a prosecution request for a severe sentence, a panel of military officers sentenced the convicted former driver for Osama bin Laden to five and a half years in prison on Thursday. The sentence means that the first detainee convicted after a war crimes trial here could complete his punishment by the end of this year.

The military judge, Capt. Keith J. Allred of the Navy, had already said that he planned to give the driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, credit for at least the 61 months he has been held since being charged, out of more than six years in all. That would bring Mr. Hamdan to the end of his criminal sentence in five months. After that his fate is unclear, because the Bush administration says that it can hold detainees here until the end of the war on terror.

Nice job, Republicans, of nailing Osama bin Laden's ex-chauffeur. I'm sure those five months will be worth all the money and brainpower spent on the conviction, although as long as Republican is President and can, like a king, keep him imprisoned indefinitely, at least more of the interrogation story won't come out.

Hey, it's not even Friday yet and there's another GOP politician in a disgraceful sexual scandal:

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said.

A Cole County grand jury returned an indictment today charging Muschany with the Class C felony of "deviate sexual assault." The indictment identifies the victim only by initials. It says that on May 17, Muschany "had deviate sexual intercourse" with the girl, "knowing that he did so without" her consent.

Muschany, 42, was booked into the Cole County Jail today at 2:50 and he was released after posting a $5,000 bond. If convicted, Muschany faces a fine of up to $5,000 and a prison term of up to 7 years.

Only seven? Maybe he can take some of Hamdan's six.

What are the Republicans doing right, besides giving Paris Hilton some awesome new material?

They're doing what Obama said:

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that, two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.

Hey, it's fun to mock, but there's a point to it. While grandpa McCain is putting a softer face on the deadly GOP brand, let's not forget that the same Karl Rove driving his vile and lying character smears of Obama has been driving U.S. policy for almost a decade. Let's not forget that the GOP financial and ideological party apparatus, taken over by Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, Dick Cheney et al is essentially corrupt, a criminal enterprise that will take more than this election to wash through the system, if ever. It's the party of blatant hypocrisy, dividing voters with anti-gay rights laws while assaulting young boys or seeking illicit sex in airport bathrooms.

This election is about much, much more than Barack Obama. He's a vessel, sure, he brings youth and intelligence, strategy and tenacity to the Party and hopefully the Republic, and he's the right man at the right time. But this is just as much about clearing the palate, flushing the toilet, lighting sage and Native chants.

They'll try to smear Obama, to bring them down to their level. But that's just not the guy he is.

Just remember who these smearmongers are, Rove to McCain, and how much they've just gone and ruined these last eight years.

Dark Synthesis

The Joker first entered my consciousness four decades ago when I watched the third week, ergo the fifth and sixth episodes, of the original Batman series on ABC. Because they had rather wisely started the show with The Riddler, followed by The Penguin, and only then tackled Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker, I didn't realize just then that that this super villain sat at the top of the pyramid, that ever since he was created in 1940 by (arguably) Jerry Robinson, he's been the one to watch.

While co-writer/producer/director Christopher Nolan and his co-writers Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer (co-story) and all the money and technical expertise imaginable certainly gives The Dark Knight plenty to look at, its their interpretation of the Joker, as channeled and conjured by Health Ledger, that's the clincher for seeing it. There hasn't been a better Batman story put on the screen, no matter the flaws anyone might find in this one, and it's because their Joker has given them the handle for synthesizing so many relevant aspects of the Batman canon stretching all the way back to that first appearance in Batman #1, and synthesizing so much of the post-9/11 terror that runs under our American life since that day in 2001.

The artistic success of The Dark Knight, the thing that makes it so unnerving and hard to come to grips with, is this ripping anxiety, this unstable world where bigrigs flip ass-over engine and buildings collapse in hell-on-earth flames, and The shadowy Batman may be the cause of it all.

As the end of Batman Begins made clear, this new hero's success caused a breakout at the asylum (Arkham, to be exact) as the most psychotic criminals of all wanted their fair shot at this new crime-fighting freak. So in the post-9/11 world, where many of us have long had questions of blowback for global military, C.I.A. and economic hitman-style U.S. actions both well-intentioned and not-so-much, the question becomes whether the center can hold at all. Batman is supposed to right all wrongs but in Nolan's vision, it's too big a job for any one man. Or two, as the tragically well-meaning District Attorney, Harvey Dent, provides momentary service as well.

The trick of this movie is that Ledger's Joker is the smartest, wiliest, savviest, most committed character in the movie. Like Keyser Soze, he does the things nobody else would have the guts to do, or could even think to do. He doesn't care about money, he doesn't care for power in the traditional sense. He's only interested in chaos, a kind of major league asshole Situationalist who's Theater of the Absurd is 100% reliably always a Theatre of Cruelty. Each and every one of his larcenous, homicidal "pranks" is a social experiment, much like the 9/11 bombings didn't bring down Western capitalism as it created interpersonal panic.

Genre pictures generally have the duty of both satisfying the traditional expectations and trappings, but twisting them just enough that the formula feels refreshed. Genre pictures that stand astride and ultimately transcend their genres have to do more than twist, they have to turn the genre on its head -- satisfy us that they know their stuff, then burst the bonds in dazzling ways.

The Godfather is more than a gangster picture -- it's about the depths of family loyalty. The Matrix is more than a sci-fi film -- it questions perception and reality. The Dark Knight is more than a superhero movie (and no one in the movie has super powers, albeit some movie magic) -- it's actually an uber-powered crime film asking how can you ever expect to clean up a world where human nature breeds new criminals faster than terrorists after a mosque attack.

Much of the picture plays as a series of heists, starting with the bravura bank robbery (with full nod to Michael Mann's Heat) that sets the tone for the unexpected. And this is where the IMAX experience kicks in as well. If you're fortunate enough to have access to an IMAX theater near you, reserve your ticket several days early, as they are selling ahead and selling out for the primo evening and weekend shows. I can imagine the movie playing in IMAX as long as in the regular theaters, as it's a unique, new experience. The screen officially opens up for six action sequences, but there are a number of unheralded establishing shots, aerial cityscapes both day and night, Hong Kong and Gotham (Chicago), that add such edgy grandeur to the experience.

So you feel like you are right there in the bank as the guns go off and Ledger shows up, first in a mask, the other big subtextual theme to the movie. One of the first shots is a man, maybe the Joker, standing on a street corner, his back to the camera, waiting for the criminal pick-up as the camera glides down to the clown mask dangling from his hand. Ledger's Joker's face is a mask, of greasepaint over scars, a mocking attempt to mask his own hideousness, the fractured but somehow more honest doppleganger for the billionaire with the rigid cowl. But it's what he says, licking his scars like a wolf, that scare the most, his knowing dissection of human behavior, flipping the pathologies of the good guys against themselves in a more credible way than previous filmed Jokers. It's the grit of the movie working for it, as when the Joker makes good on his word of making a pencil disappear.

I can't imagine how the vertiginous motif of the film translates to the regular aspect ratio, as all the skyscrapers scraps and escapes, the graceful dives through glittery cityscapes, seem crucial for the film's scale, it's desire to burst free of genre by any means necessary. The widescreen ratio works well for things like the homage to Stanley Kubrick in the underground Batcave, a spacious, mostly vacant, laboratory lit by wall-to-wall white panels above. It works for some of the scenes with Christian Bale in Bruce Wayne mode and either Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes or Aaron Eckhardt as Harvey Dent. But it puts you into this disturbing picture in an intoxicating (like absinthe) way when it goes full square eyeball-filling screen.

The biggest shock about The Dark Knight is that this is the most relentlessly downbeat huge budget Hollywood movies ever made. The Godfather was warm in comparison. That this most famous of superheros, the one with whom it is so much easier to identify than the supernaturally powered visitors and mutants, is the vessel for such a pessimistic portrait of urban civic life (almost like a comic book Wire) is strange combination -- again, a synthesis -- of events.

So what's the zeitgeist this time?

If, as Sir Michael Caine (Wayne's butler Alfred in the movie) has been quoted as saying, "Superman is how America views itself. Batman is how the rest of the world views America,” then maybe the success of this movie, directed for an American conglomerate by an Englishman, means America is somehow interested again in how the world views us, not just in how we impose our will upon the world.

Then again, maybe, like Joker and Batman alike, we're just drawn to fiery chaos.

Start the Proceedings

I mean, c'mon...:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

Why isn't this front page news? Is Suskind properly sourced? Does an inside witness have to wriggle free?

Will there ever be any justice laid on these malefactors of the Republic?

Hit

Dangerously disconnected (like GWB):



Smack:



Nice.

Who's Who

There's a big week coming up, the last time for the candidates to
dominate the news cycle before the two weeks of Olympic coverage. Bets are on for either Obama or McCain or both to announce VP running mates. Meanwhile, there's the wreckage of last week's "celebrity" attacks by McCain on Obama to deal with. Per Joe Trippi:

Ever since McCain’s NAACP speech that seemed to me to be directed at white swing voters and not at African Americans I have believed that the McCain campaign is adept at understanding how to raise race as an issue and use it to its advantage.

Is a pattern emerging?

With white voters, the attacks appear to be working -- so far. Per David Gergen:



Will there be long-term damage to the McCain campaign? Is John McCain actually the very thing he ridicules? Mark Kleiman says yes:

Something about the Britney/Paris video has been nagging at the back of my mind, and I finally figured out what it was. Comparing Obama to them is wrong because they're fading stars and he's a rising star. The Britney/Paris analogue in the race is McCain: he, like they, got rather far on extremely limited talent and huge amounts of marketing, and is now desperately trying to cling to celebrity with more and more extreme antics that get him ink but offend and sadden his fans.

And that explains the raw hatred that McCain and his handlers display towards Obama: it's the hatred of the has-been (especially a has-been who never was much in the first place, a mere celebrity, like Britney rather than an actual star, like Madonna) for the person (especially the person of egregiously superior talent) she passes on the rising escalator as she herself takes the long, long ride down to well-deserved obscurity and mall openings.

In fact, Paris Hilton's mother is none-too-pleased with the ad:

I've been asked again and again for my response to the now infamous McCain celebrity ad. I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

So stripping all the well-planned Rovian distraction away, the circus that may or may not decide the future leader of the free world, who is this John McCain in who's name this ad was run?

This guy:



Yep, Joe Lieberman may condescend to Obama as "a good young man" (tell me and my wife that we're young at roughly Obama's age and we'll dance in the streets), but his candidate is, at best, a "once-good old man."

Good luck, America.

Two Headlines

The New York Times:

On Debates, Obama Backs 3 With McCain

The Associated Press:

Obama backs away from McCain's debate challenge

Which news source do you think has a Washington Bureau Chief who is close enough to the McCain campaign to have been offered a job?

Could it be the same Ron Fournier who writes an article framing Obama as arrogant and sends Karl Rove an email telling him to "keep up the fight?"

So the next time someone tells you the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama, tell them about the AP serving John McCain his favorite donuts while likening Obama to a terrorist. Tell them about the AP's Ron Fournier calling Obama an elitist and dropping negative rumors into supposed journalistic articles.

Tell them about the AP smearing Obama on his official agreement, in advance of McCain, to the Presidential debates.