Donald Rumsfeld has died at 88

The Washington Post reports:

Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose roles overseeing the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and efforts to transform the U.S. military made him one of history’s most consequential as well as controversial Pentagon leaders, died June 29 at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88. …

His greatest notoriety and national effect came during a six-year reign as defense secretary under President George W. Bush. Hailed initially for leading the U.S. military to war in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq War eventually led to his downfall. Widely criticized for poorly planning the invasion’s aftermath, he was slow to recognize the development of an insurgency, draft an effective strategy for countering it and set clear policy for the treatment of prisoners.

Dogged for months by mounting calls for Mr. Rumsfeld’s removal, Bush finally let him go in late 2006 — 3 1/2 years into the Iraq War and just after an election in which the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. Mr. Rumsfeld’s forced exit under clouds of blame and disapproval cast a dark shadow over his previously illustrious career.

None of his predecessors had come into the Pentagon’s top job with as much relevant experience. Having served as defense secretary once before under Ford, Mr. Rumsfeld was the only person ever to get a second shot at the position. He held the record as the youngest Pentagon leader — and early in his tenure under Bush, he became the oldest. …

Rumsfeld was the subject of an Errol Morris documentary, The Unknown Known (2013):

The Onion's take:

Weapon Of Mass Destruction Found Dead At 88

Trump on the Kurds: "They didn't help us in the second World War"

President Donald Trump said that yesterday, even though more than 10,000 Kurds have died helping us fight ISIS.

It used to be that presidents and presidential candidates would argue for their policies by pointing out that "the Cold War is over" (for instance, George W. Bush and Obama have both said those exact words). Now, Trump doesn't want to admit that World War II is over.

Jennifer Rubin's illogical argument about presidential debates

Jennifer Rubin argues in the Washington Post that Biden’s primary opponents shouldn’t expect to take the lead by beating him in the debates. She gives historical examples, but see if you can find a flaw in her argument about the 2000 election:

There are precious few instances in which a candidate’s debate performance destroyed his chances. President Gerald Ford’s infamous remark “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe . . . I don’t believe the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union" was the rare exception to the rule that a single answer can doom a candidates. Then-Vice President Al Gore’s sighing, eye-rolling and obvious disdain for then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 general-election debates did him no favors, but it’s hard to conclude those debates were decisive in an election that was essentially a tie.

See the problem? If you give up, read the first two comments on my public Facebook post about this. Or you can highlight this white-on-white text for the answer:

My mom, Ann Althouse, wrote in a comment:

It's maddening to hear that "it’s hard to conclude those debates were decisive in an election that was essentially a tie." If it is the case — and I think it is — that Gore ought to have won easily, then falling back to the tie position is a big difference. It's EASY to conclude the debates were decisive...

I responded:

Yeah, she’s assuming that Gore and Bush started out tied! But that ignores all the factors that were in Gore’s favor as the two-term vice president in an administration that oversaw a booming economy, as well as the perception that Gore was smarter and more competent than Bush.

Live-blogging the last 2016 Republican debate before the voting starts

It's also the first time Donald Trump hasn't participated in a 2016 Republican debate. I'll be live-blogging it here. Keep reloading this post for more updates.

For more live-blogging, check out National Review, TPM, the New Republic, Althouse (my mom), and Alex Knepper.

9:03 — Megyn Kelly starts by asking Ted Cruz about "the elephant not in the room tonight — Donald Trump." Cruz responds: "I'm a maniac. Everyone on this stage is stupid, fat, and ugly. And Ben, you're a terrible surgeon. Now that we've gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way . . ." [VIDEO.]

9:06 — Marco Rubio says Trump is "the greatest show on earth," but the election isn't about him — it's about America, "the greatest country in the world." He also takes a jab at Hillary Clinton for her recent suggestion that future-former-President Obama could be a good choice for Supreme Court.

9:07 — Jeb Bush: "I kind of miss Donald Trump! He was a little teddy bear to me!"

9:08 — Bush breaks some news: he's part of "the establishment."

9:10 — Chris Christie brushes off a question about whether he's too much about compromising and reaching across the aisle. He says that kind of thing just doesn't matter to the 45-year-old construction worker who's lost money under the Obama administration.

9:11 — Rand Paul is asked if he made a mistake by not getting an earlier start in embracing his father, Ron Paul, who might have caused more of the excitement of his 2008 and 2012 campaigns to rub off on his son.

9:12 — Cruz gives a shout-out to the Pauls for trying to audit the Federal Reserve.

9:13 — Rubio says: "I respect Rand." Rubio's tautological reason for this: "He believes in everything he stands for."

9:16 — John Kasich is asked if he's too establishment. He says he isn't in the outsider lane or the establishment lane; he's in "the Kasich lane." However, he sounds pretty establishment, talking about how he's worked with Democrats and balanced the budget.

9:17 — Carson: "I don't think you have to be a politician to tell the truth. In fact, sometimes it's the other way around." He actually said something a little different because he jumbled his words — staying true to his statement that he wouldn't have any "polished political speeches."

9:19 — Cruz talks about how he's going to destroy ISIL, but denies that he's "talking tough" on ISIL. Rubio responds by saying Cruz's record on military spending is the same as Rand Paul's.

9:20 — Rubio refers to Dabiq, Syria, then clarifies: "Not Dubuque[, Iowa]! I pronounced that incorrectly last time!" Alex Knepper wonders why he'd say that, other than "nerves." My answer: So viewers won't mishear it — especially Iowa viewers who are going to caucus in 4 days.

9:26 — Christie forcefully attacks Hillary Clinton for saying she used a private server for email "for her convenience." "She put the nation's security at risk — for her convenience. . . . Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president."

9:27 — Cruz tussles with a moderator, Chris Wallace, over whether Cruz is allowed to respond after Wallace's question to Christie mentioned Cruz. Wallace says no, because Christie's answer didn't attack Cruz. Cruz keeps trying to cut in, as if he doesn't understand the rule Wallace explains over and over. [VIDEO.]

9:30 — After Bush criticizes Cruz, Wallace finally lets Cruz respond. But Cruz doesn't have a substantive response — instead, he whines about how many of the questions have asked the candidates to attack him. (This prompts loud booing from the audience.) Wallace retorts: "It is a debate, sir!" Cruz coyly threatens to walk off the stage if there are too many negative questions about him — an allusion to Trump's absence. [Added later: After I point out that Cruz was being facetious, Alex Knepper says, "I thought he was being serious! I guess not. Didn't deliver the line very well." My response: "It's safe to say that if as savvy a political observer as you thought he was being serious, his sarcasm wasn't effective enough to work on prime-time TV a few days before Iowa."] [VIDEO.]

9:34 — Rubio says he's open to closing down mosques, diners, etc. where people are being "radicalized," despite the concerns raised by Megyn Kelly about infringing on the First Amendment right to free speech. Rand Paul strongly disagrees with Rubio.

9:38 — Megyn Kelly asks Ben Carson about a Muslim woman who recently asked Hillary Carson whether America is the best place for her to raise her children. Carson responds toughly: "We need to stop allowing political correctness to dictate our policies — because it's going to kill us if we don't!" 

9:49 — Christie is asked if he can name just one thing the federal government does that he doesn't think it should do. "Yeah! Ya want one? . . . Let's get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood." The moderator, Brett Baier, asks if he has "anything bigger than that." Christie says he can't think of anything "bigger than the murder of children in the womb."

9:52 — Why does Bush always seem to get the questions about minor issues? He's asked about statehood for Puerto Rico. Earlier, he was asked about allegations that the Wounded Warrior Project spends too much of its money on itself. In an earlier debate, he was asked about whether to regulate betting on fantasy football.

9:59 — Megyn Kelly plays a long clip show of Rubio in about 2009 talking about how phrases like a "path to citizenship" are "code" for "amnesty." Then Kelly suggests he then supported amnesty once he later became a Senator. Rubio denies he's flip-flopped. Bush responds that he's "kind of confused" by what Rubio's said — although Bush admits: "I supported you, 'cause you asked me to!" Bush also plugs his book on immigration — "You can get it for $2.99 on Amazon!" [A little later, an Amazon reviewer gave the book 1 star for being much more expensive than $2.99.]

10:04 — Kelly plays a clip show of Cruz talking about what he now claims is a poison pill he used to kill Rubio's immigration reform. In the clip, Cruz passionately declares: "I don't want immigration reform to fail! I want immigration reform to pass!" After the clip, Kelly asks a devastating question: "Was that all an act? It was pretty convincing!" Cruz starts his response by talking about the short word count of his amendment to the bill relative to the long length of the bill. How many voters really care about those kinds of legislative metrics? [VIDEO of the Cruz and Rubio clip shows.]

10:08 — Paul and Rubio both say Cruz is lying on immigration. Rubio to Cruz: "You want to trump Trump on immigration! We're not going to beat Hillary Clinton with someone who's willing to say or do anything to win an election!" Cruz responds with back-handed compliments about Rubio: "He's very charming. He's very smooth." [VIDEO.]

10:10 — Christie says it's fine for Rubio or Cruz to "change their mind," but the difference is that Christie, as a governor, will "admit it."

10:12 — Carson seems so irrelevant by this point.

10:17 — Bush takes a veiled shot at Trump: "This is bean bag compared to what the Clinton machine is going to do to the Republican nominee."

10:17 — For the second time, Rubio criticizes Hillary Clinton's comments about the possibility of appointing Obama to the Supreme Court. I understand why he's bringing it up, but is that really important enough to be his repeated refrain in this debate?

10:19 — Rubio: "I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president — of Sweden!" [VIDEO.]

10:20 — Christie is asked about the New Jersey bridge closing scandal. He says three investigations were done and showed: "I knew nothing." [But WaPo's Fact Checker says only one of the investigations reached that conclusion.]

10:25 — The moderator announces that they're going to start talking about "social issues" to appeal to evangelicals. This is where I tune out . . .

10:30 — Rubio: "I will always allow my faith to influence everything I do."

10:38 — Kasich might be the best-qualified but the least interesting to listen to.

10:43 — Rand Paul is asked if we should hold Hillary Clinton responsible for Bill Clinton's behavior toward women. Paul says if any CEO acted toward a 22-year-old intern the way Bill Clinton acted toward Monica Lewinsky, the CEO would be fired and never hired again. Paul suggests that this could make it harder for Hillary Clinton to call for women's rights, but he doesn't address the tougher issue of whether Hillary had any role in enabling or defending Bill's treatment of other women.

10:56 — Christie starts his closing statement with something he's said in a previous debate — that on September 11, 2001, he didn't hear from his wife for hours, while she was trapped in her building near the World Trade Center, and he had to contemplate the possibility of becoming a single father of three. "I've faced it. I've prosecuted terrorists."

10:56 — Bush has a bad habit of tripping over his prepared words. He's just not a compelling speaker, and he's running against several compelling speakers.

10:58 — In Cruz's closing statement, he mentions that it's now going to be "up to the men and women of Iowa to decide." The phrase "men and women" has long been used to refer to the military, but I feel like this election it's been used to refer to voters more than ever before. Has "people" become a bad word?

The Washington Post lists the "winners and losers." I agree that Cruz was one of the latter:

Cruz did the thing I hate the most in debates -- complain about the rules -- when he tried to game a bit more talking time and got shut down by moderator Chris Wallace. The Texas Senator's joking threat that if he kept taking incoming from the other candidates he might leave the stage (Donald Trump reference!) fell flat. He was on the wrong end of a scolding by Paul over his conservative righteousness. And, time and time again, Cruz found himself insisting that on a panoply of issues -- military spending, immigration etc. -- everyone was either wrong about his position or didn't understand it well enough. That's too much defense for Cruz to play -- especially in a debate without Trump.

Live-blogging the second Democratic debate of 2016

I'll be live-blogging the debate here. Keep reloading for more updates.

This is the first Democratic debate after Biden announced he wasn't running, and after three candidates dropped out. There are only three candidates, so no one should need to complain about not having enough time in this two-hour debate.

As always, I'll be writing down quotes as I hear them, so they might not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate.

For more live-blogging, check out TPM, the New Republic, and Althouse (my mom).

[Here's the transcript.]

9:06 — First, each candidate is asked for their thoughts on the attacks on Paris yesterday. Sanders vows to "rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS."

9:08 — Hillary Clinton denounces the "radical jihadist ideology" of ISIS, a "terrorist group." The use of the word "jihadist" seems to mark a shift from President Obama, who shies away from referring to the Islamic nature of Islamic terrorism.

9:10 — Clinton is asked if Obama underestimated the threat posed by ISIS. Clinton fails to answer the question, and instead makes her standard points about ISIS and terrorism. The moderator calls her out on this, and asks the same question again. [VIDEO.]

9:13 — Martin O'Malley takes a hawkish tone, calling ISIS "evil" and saying "this is America's fight," though "not only America's fight." [Added later: O'Malley was responding to Clinton's repeated statement that "this cannot be an American fight." However, she added: "American leadership is essential."]

9:13 — Sanders is asked if he still believes climate change is the greatest threat in the world. He says yes — in fact, climate change leads to terrorism. [VIDEO.]

9:14 — Sanders and O'Malley both criticize Clinton for understating America's responsibility to defeat ISIS.

9:15 — Sanders notes that Clinton voted for the Iraq War, which led to ISIS.

9:16 — Clinton defends herself with a long-winded and confusing historical account going back to the '90s. As I understand it, she's basically emphasizing that terrorism was a serious problem well before the Iraq War — but how should that allay any Democratic voters' concerns that her vote to authorize the Iraq War made things worse rather than better?

9:17 — Sanders calls himself "more conservative than the Secretary" on "regime change" — meaning he's more cautious and aware of the unintended consequences. [VIDEO.]

9:21 — The moderator, John Dickerson, points out that Clinton "championed" Obama's invasion of Libya, and quotes Obama saying he learned from Libya that it's important to think in advance about what happens "the day after." Dickerson asks: shouldn't that lesson already have been learned by then, from the Iraq War?

9:23 — O'Malley is asked about his lack of foreign-policy experience. He says: "We are not so good at appreciating threats and building up stable democracies." He also talks about a mom who urged him not to use the phrase "boots on the ground" because she felt her son was diminished by the metonymy. (Of course, he didn't use the word "metonymy.")

9:26 — Clinton is asked if she agrees with Marco Rubio's statement that we're "at war with radical Islam." Clinton dodges the question by saying "we're not at war with all Muslims." As the moderator points out, that isn't what Rubio said — Rubio limited his statement to radical Islam. Clinton praises President Bush for speaking appropriately about this sensitive topic in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. [VIDEO.]

9:27 — Clinton is asked if we need to "understand" ISIS. This is a politically tricky question, but she gives a clever response: she first says it's "very difficult to put ourselves in their shoes," but then proceeds to do just that by describing ISIS's worldview as one of "nihilism," "a lust for power," and "rejection of modernity and human rights." [Added later:] I'm struck by how Clinton went straight for the hawkish view of ISIS (they're just a bunch of nihilistic, backward people who crave power), and passed up the opportunity to urge us to have a greater understanding of the "root causes" of terrorism. Clinton sounded much like the conservative Charles Krauthammer, writing in the month after the September 11 attacks:

It turns out that the enemy does have recognizable analogues in the Western experience. He is, as President Bush averred in his address to the nation, heir to the malignant ideologies of the 20th century. In its nihilism [the same word used by Clinton], its will to power [similar to the "lust for power" mentioned by Clinton], its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas [in Afghanistan earlier in 2001], it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed [that would be an example of the "rejection of modernity," as Clinton put it].

9:28 — O'Malley says our Muslim American "neighbors" are not our "enemies" — "they are our first line of defense."

9:33 — Clinton says she supports taking in 65,000 Syrian refugees. Of course, she says we should have a "careful" screening process to "prevent people who wish to do us harm from coming into our country." (Easier said than done.)

9:42 — Sanders is asked how high he'd raise taxes. He doesn't have an "exact number," but it will be lower than the highest rate under President Eisenhower — "I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower!" [VIDEO.]

9:44 — Clinton vows to "defend" Obamacare, in contrast with Republicans, who will tear it up and throw us back into a "contentious debate" about health care. She says she disagrees with Sanders on health care, but Sanders retorts that he was on the committee that drafted Obamacare.

9:46 — Sanders says we need to "end the national embarrassment of being the only advanced country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege."

9:51 — O'Malley says that net immigration in the past year was "zero." He blatantly pleads for media attention: "Go ahead, fact-check me!" (Clinton says he's "basically" right.) [Update: The Washington Post's Fact Checker obliged.]

9:53 — Sanders is asked how much "job loss" he'd find an "acceptable" consequence of raising the minimum wage. Sanders vaguely acknowledges that any policy will have some negative consequences, but he'll "apologize to nobody" for supporting an increase to $15 an hour. For some reason, he suggests that this will especially help to reduce unemployment among black youths.

9:56 — O'Malley is asked why he raised Maryland's minimum wage only to $10.10, when he now calls for increasing the whole country's minimum wage to $15.

9:56 — Clinton admits that "there are no international comparisons" to what would happen if we raised the minimum wage to $15, so she only supports raising it to $12, which "would be the highest above the historical average we've ever had."

10:02 — Clinton is asked how she can rein in Wall Street when she's "indebted" to so many people on Wall Street since they've donated so much money to her. Clinton says this is obvious from the fact that two "billionaire hedge fund managers" have been putting out attack ads against her. Sanders says Clinton's answer is "not good enough," and asks why Wall Street has been such a "major contributor" to Clinton. "Maybe they're dumb! But I don't think so." [VIDEO.]

10:05 — Things really heat up between Clinton and Sanders over Clinton's connections to Wall Street. Clinton says: "He has basically used his answer to impugn my integrity." Sanders protests: "No I have not!" Clinton presses on: "Oh, wait a minute here . . ." She adds that Sanders's plan of "breaking up the big banks" is "not enough." Sanders seems like he's trying to turn down the heat: "I respectfully disagree with you, Madam Secretary." [VIDEO.]

10:08 — O'Malley repeatedly says, very slowly and emphatically, that Clinton's proposal on Wall Street is "weak tea."

10:09 — As in the last debate, Clinton seems to be trying to minimize any apparent difference between herself and the other candidates on financial regulations: "If the big banks don't play by the rules, I will break them up."

10:10 — Sanders says, in a thinly veiled swipe at Clinton: "Here's my promise: Wall Street representatives will not be in my cabinet."

10:11 — Clinton repeats what she said in the last debate about her disagreement with Sanders about lawsuits against gun manufacturers. The moderator shoots back: "If he can be tattooed by one vote . . . why can't you be tattooed by your vote on Iraq?" Clinton frankly admits: "I made a mistake on Iraq."

10:13 — On gun control, Sanders says, "I don't know that there's any disagreement here," and both of the other candidates laugh at him.

10:14 — O'Malley goes after Clinton on gun control: "You've been on three sides of this." She was for gun regulations at first, but then "painted [her]self as Annie Oakley, saying we don't need regulations at the federal level." Sanders tries to take the rug out from under O'Malley with the understatement that Baltimore, of which O'Malley was mayor, is "not the safest city in America."

10:16 — A viewer asks Clinton why she invoked "9/11" to defend against Sanders's charges of being too close to Wall Street. Clinton seems to suggest that the viewer misunderstood. (Well, I didn't understand Clinton's point either.)

[Added later:] Here's how Politico quotes Clinton:

I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan, where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country. [VIDEO.]

TNR tries to explain it. Politico reports on more negative reactions to what Clinton. David Axelrod, Obama's former adviser, mocks her on Twitter:

@HillaryClinton vehemently offers support for Wall Street as post-911 recovery effort. Does that fly?

O'Malley's deputy campaign manager, Lis Smith, gets personal:

My dad worked in WTC from the day it was built to the day it went down. @HillaryClinton, never invoke 9/11 to justify your Wall St positions

10:17 — Clinton says some stuff that I didn't catch about Glass-Steagall. She admits it's an "arcane" discussion, and I think she knows that talk of "Glass-Steagall" doesn't mean much to most viewers, especially when no one bothers to explain it. Even Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, doesn't understand why there's so much focus on it in the debates! I don't know if the candidates are even thinking about the fact that some of their viewers who will be eligible to vote in 2016 are teenagers; Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, when they were babies.

10:25 — Sanders is asked about the apparent discrepancy between his statement in the last debate that he was "sick and tired" of hearing about Clinton's emails, and his later comments, but Sanders brushes this off as a media invention. We get a sequel to the Sanders/Clinton love-fest from the last debate, with Sanders saying: "I didn't know that I had so much power! We don't hear much about her emails anymore! . . . We've gotten off of Clinton's emails — good!" Clinton: "I couldn't have said it better myself!"

10:27 — Clinton: "President Obama deserves more credit than he's gotten for what he got done in Washington, despite Republican obstructionism."

10:28 — Dickerson brings up her recent congressional testimony on Benghazi, and asks if she can assure us the "other shoe isn't going to drop." Clinton: "I think after 11 hours, that's pretty clear!"

10:30 — When O'Malley is asked about criminal justice reform, he says he has more "graveside" experience than the other candidates.

10:32 — Sanders calls to "end minimum sentencing" and legalize marijuana at the federal level, so states can be free to legalize it.

10:35 — Sanders is asked why government should pay for tuition, when about 40% of college students don't graduate. Isn't the taxpayer money just "thrown away" on them? Sanders doesn't answer that question, but simply reiterates his support for "free" college (to the extent anything that would cost billions of dollars can be called "free").

10:38— Clinton: "I disagree with free college for everybody." Her rationale is that taxpayers should have to "send Donald Trump's kids to college." (Of course, Trump's kids went to private colleges, which wouldn't be affected by Sanders's plan.) Government and families should both "contribute."

10:40 — The moderator points out that Clinton's health-care plan back when she was First Lady was "Sanders-esque." Clinton seems wistful: "Revolution never came! . . . I have the scars to prove it!"

10:42 — As the moderator is starting to go to a commercial break, O'Malley begs for more time, but Dickerson blames it on technology: "I'm sorry, Governor, we've got to take a break, or the machine breaks down!" [Update: Out of the three candidates, O'Malley spoke the least — 25% of the time — and Clinton spoke the most — 40% of the time.]

10:46 — The candidates are all asked about "a time you've been tested," which they could draw on as president. Clinton says the time she had to advise Obama on the mission to kill bin Laden. Clinton gets personal: "It was an excruciating experience — I couldn't talk to anybody about it," including her husband. Sanders's answer is pretty dull by comparison: he says he'd draw on his experience compromising with Republicans when he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

10:51 — In his closing statement, O'Malley says we shouldn't return to "polarizing figures of the past." I can't imagine who he has in mind!

10:52 — Clinton starts her closing statement with a good line: "I've heard a lot about me in this debate. I'm going to keep talking and thinking about you." At the end of her statement, she gets wild applause.

10:54 — Sanders's closing statement is evocative of Larry David's impersonation of him: "We need a political revolution! . . . Turn off the TV! . . . Please become a part of the revolution!"

O'Malley successfully baited Trump into giving him some much-needed publicity.

Peter Beinart, a liberal, thinks this debate showed troubling signs for Clinton:

imagine @marcorubio on that stage and u can imagine how far on the defensive @HillaryClinton will be on ISIS

So who won tonight? It's hard to say. Maybe the Republicans.

Update: Many are saying the winner was John Dickerson.

Former President George W. Bush makes over $1 million for a homeless shelter . . .

. . . by charging a $100,000 speaking fee.

“We paid his regular fee,” Lynne Sipiora told Politico. She’s the executive director of the Samaritan Inn, a homeless shelter in McKinney, Texas. “Which is $100,000.” . . .

Sipiora, the executive director of the Samaritan Inn, called Bush’s fee of $100,000 a “bargain.”

“We looked at many entertainers and political figures, and they were much higher,” she said. “Hillary Clinton was, like, $250,000.

“We’re a homeless shelter, so it was a hefty fee for us, but we ended up netting over $1 million,” said Sipiora, who identified herself as one of the few Democrats in her area. “It was not a very political conversation. I’m sure he’s answered the same questions a million times. But he was very popular and charming and pleasant.” She said Bush sent her a prompt thank you note in which he mentioned her father by name.

Should Romney have a "Sister Souljah" moment by linking Bush to Obama?

Jonah Goldberg thinks so:

Romney must challenge Obama’s theories of both the past and the future. The notion that Bush was a government-shrinking market fanatic is bizarre. Under Bush, the federal government spent more than 3 percent of GDP on anti-poverty programs for the first time. Education spending rose 58 percent faster than inflation. Bush gave us Medicare Part D, the biggest expansion in entitlements since the Great Society — until Obamacare. He signed Sarbanes-Oxley, created a whole new Cabinet agency (the Department of Homeland Security), and was the originator of the bailouts, TARP, and the first stimulus program.

Obama took many of these policies and approaches and expanded them. Historians will look back on the Bush-Obama years as a time of largely uninterrupted growth in government and debt.

I don’t believe the Republican party would punish Romney for a policy-heavy “Sister Souljah moment.” I’ve made this argument in front of numerous conservative audiences (and recently in the pages of National Review) with little to no objection. My hunch is that Bush himself would be happy to serve as a punching bag if it would help.

Are there too many debates?

The Washington Post raises the question of whether there are too many debates in the presidential primaries, writing:

Are Americans getting too much of a good thing?

By the end of the week, there will have been 19 debates among the GOP contenders for president. No other events have played so great a role in turning the party’s normally orderly process of picking a standard-bearer into a roller coaster ride. . . .

Debates were the undoing of two once-promising candidates, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. They made front-runners, however briefly, of two otherwise unlikely ones, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive Herman Cain.

And without them, former House speaker Newt Gingrich would not have been able to resurrect his dying campaign, not once but twice.

The long season of debates has undoubtedly made the candidates familiar figures to many Americans, offering the willing viewer plenty of opportunity to absorb competing economic plans and various other positions.

One could argue that it has altered the balance of power a bit, shifting it away from the party establishment to an electorate apparently eager to engage: Ratings show the debates are drawing huge audiences.

But some worry that Republicans are putting too much emphasis on how well the candidates perform on a debating stage . . .

[Karl] Rove is concerned that the amount of time that candidates are spending in debates and on preparing for them has taken away from other priorities, such as deepening their messages, broadening their appeal and building their organizations.

Yeah, right: Karl Rove is worried that the candidates are being distracted from deepening their messages. If you watch the documentary about George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, Journeys with George, you'll see that Rove's own boss went around the country spouting the exact same feel-good talking points for two years, and the journalists who had to follow him around felt they were part of a mind-numbing charade. I'm sure most presidential campaigns are the same.

Having a lot of debates forces the candidates to keep up with the issues of the day. It forces them to confront moderators and opponents who can put them on the spot. These are good things. There's very little opportunity cost in preventing the candidates from spending even more time repeating the same stump speech to different crowds.

If conservative voters are angry with the Republican establishment, why is Mitt Romney winning?

Ramesh Ponnuru says: "Make a mental list of the last four Republican nominees -- George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain -- and the notion of a Romney victory in the primaries becomes less surprising."

Dick Cheney kept a resignation letter in a safe the whole time he was Vice President.

He reveals this in his memoirs, which are coming out next Tuesday. Only Cheney, President Bush, and one staffer knew of the letter's existence.

Cheney's reason:

"[T]here is no mechanism for getting rid of a vice president who can’t function."

He also makes this tantalizing statement about his book:

"I didn’t set out to embarrass the president or not embarrass the president."

Helping Haiti

Everyone seems to be texting "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross (which my mom connects to Jesus). Everyone, that is, except Mickey Kaus, who makes a point of saying he doesn't trust the Red Cross and is donating to Partners in Health.

I don't share Kaus's anti-Red Cross sentiment, but his remark did get me thinking about where I should donate. Then I realized I had already donated to Doctors Without Borders' aid to Haiti without knowing it, since I opted for a fixed amount of my paycheck to go to that organization. "Our immediate response in the first hours following the disaster in Haiti," says the organization, "was only possible because of private unrestricted donations from around the world received before the earthquake struck." You can donate to them through this link.

Doctors Without Borders (a.k.a. Medicins sans Frontieres) is urgently trying to overcome numerous logistical hurdles to offering help. Even just showing up in Port-au-Prince is a huge challenge for all the organizations trying to do so. Meanwhile, the most useful thing for random Americans to do, as former president George W. Bush said (see embedded video at the end of this post), isn't to try to send blankets or water and hope that they get to the people who need them. The best we can do is to send lots of money to the aid workers who are on the ground in Haiti (or at least trying to get there) and who understand the details of what needs to be done. I can't figure out how Doctors Without Borders can get all the necessary supplies, workers, and inflatable hospitals where they need to be; the best I can do is send them some of my money so that they're better equipped to do this hard work. It's easy to get a warm feeling from imagining you're directly giving people food and water and blankets, but do I know how to prioritize the people who need caesarian sections and amputations? Of course not. As much as some people might scoff at "throwing money at a problem," Bush is correct to point out that that's exactly what we need to do now. (It's what often needs to be done -- not just for Haiti or natural disasters but to deal with all sorts of problems -- since money allows trained personnel to apply their expertise to a distinctive, complex set of challenges.)

Doctors Without Borders also notes that donations to them don't just go to the banner-headline disaster in Haiti but also to humanitarian crises that the Western media doesn't pay as much attention to.

Again, you can donate to Doctors Without Borders here.

Live-blogging President Obama's prime-time speech on Afghanistan

8:04 - Obama coins a portmanteau word: "toperatives."

8:09 - "Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years now, it has moved backwards." Obama's delivery here was uncannily evocative of George W. Bush's.

8:14 - I'm glad Obama says, of the war on terrorism, "This is not just America's war," and lists some of the terrorist attacks that have happened around the world since September 11, 2001. A welcome change from the glibly myopic refrain we heard during the Bush administration that "we" haven't been attacked again.

[UPDATE: Here's the prepared text of the speech. The key passage:]

We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region. Of course, this burden is not ours alone to bear. This is not just America's war. Since 9/11, al Qaeda's safe-havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali. The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them. These facts compel us to act along with our friends and allies.

8:27 - A long-term commitment to nation-building in Afghanistan can't be fulfilled "at a reasonable cost." "The nation I'm most interested in building is our own." It's refreshing to finally have a president who's willing to bluntly acknowledge, in the context of foreign policy, that our capabilities are finite and that trade-offs sometimes need to be made.

[Another update from the transcript:]

I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who – in discussing our national security – said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.

All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. Going forward, I am committed to addressing these costs openly and honestly. Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly 30 billion dollars for the military this year, and I will work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.

But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.

(By contrast, here's Bush's second inaugural address: "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. ... America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.")

8:35 - He ends with a mix of Obama-like inspiration and Bush-like resolve: "Our cause is just. ... Right makes might."

I'm not qualified to judge the actual military strategy Obama was announcing with this speech. (How many people watching could honestly say they are?) But the speech itself was as smoothly effective as we've come to expect from Obama.

UPDATE: Here's the complete video:

The only possible explanation why President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize

Ibrahim Assem, a man-on-the-street in Cairo interviewed by the New York Times, says:

"They are handing him the Nobel Peace Prize because he isn’t George Bush."

That's from the New York Times' roundup of reactions from around the world. See if you can tell which of those reactions are honest.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus says Obama should turn down the prize. Kaus has the right idea, and so do people writing for The New Republic and the Telegraph and Gawker and Metafilter and DailyKos -- and plenty of other bloggers.

UPDATE: Obama reacts: he's "surprised and deeply humbled." "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformational figures who have been honored by this prize." "I will accept this award as a call to action." Though he stopped short of turning it down, the subtext -- that he hasn't yet accomplished enough to deserve this -- was clear. President Obama, you handled this awkward moment well.

Why are Obama's terrorism policies so similar to Bush's?

In this important article in The New Republic, Jack Goldsmith compares President Obama's policies with former President Bush's on 11 terrorism issues: whether we're fighting a "war" or merely fighting "crime," Guantanamo Bay, military detentions, habeas corpus, military commissions, targeted killings, rendition, secret prisons, surveillance, state secrets, and interrogation techniques (including torture). (Goldsmith was an Assistant Attorney General in the Bush administration.)

The whole article is worth reading, but if you want to cut to the chase, here are some of the main points:

Goldsmith's overall assessment:

The Obama administration is still debating many of these issues, and its final policies are not all set. Its changes to Bush practices thus far--cutting back on secret detentions, probable new restrictions on interrogation, and relatively small procedural changes to military commissions--will leave some suspected terrorists in a better place than they would have been under the Bush regime (although Obama's increase in targeted killings will likely result in more deaths and injuries, without due process, to terror suspects and innocent civilians). Even with these caveats, at the end of the day, Obama practices will be much closer to late Bush practices than almost anyone expected in January 2009.

4 rationales for the continuity:

[1.] [T]he late Bush practices were much different than the early ones.... The law was much clearer in 2009 [than in 2001-2003], and there was much greater consensus--across political parties and the branches of government--about permissible policies and their limits. Many Obama policies reflect that consensus.

[2.] [T]he Bush policies were woven into the fabric of the national security architecture in ways that were hard if not impossible to unravel....

So the Obama administration is a bit like a cleaning company that advertises: "We'll make your home look like new!" Then, when they actually come over, they tell you that your main problem is grime that's been around so long it's impossible to remove, and they can only do some light dusting.

Anyway, doesn't point 2 contradict point 1? Bush's policies are so ingrained they're difficult if not impossible to undo -- and by the way, Bush's policies were dramatically overhauled from 2003 to 2009.

Continuing with the rationales:

[3.] [M]any of the Bush policies reflect longstanding executive branch positions. Every wartime president has asserted the right to detain enemy forces without charge or trial during war. Many of them used military commissions for war criminals. Presidents dating back at least to Carter have maintained that habeas corpus review does not extend to aliens detained outside the United States. The state secrets doctrine is over a century old and has been employed vigorously by presidents since the 1970s. Rendition and targeted killings began under Clinton if not earlier. It is no surprise that President Obama seeks to maintain these presidential powers. It would be a surprise if he did not do so....

[4.] President Obama has gone from a legislator and presidential candidate to the commander in chief wholly responsible for the nation's safety. He now reads the same threat reports as President Bush and confronts the same challenge of stopping Islamist terrorists who hide among civilians and who want to use ever-smaller and more deadly weapons to disrupt our way of life. He also faces the same paucity of truly useful information about the enemy and the same hard tradeoffs between liberty and security. And he knows that the American people will blame him and no one else if the terrorists strike.

Goldsmith's rebuke to Dick Cheney:

[T]he former vice president is wrong to say that the new president is dismantling the Bush approach to terrorism. President Obama has not changed much of substance from the late Bush practices, and the changes he has made, including changes in presentation, are designed to fortify the bulk of the Bush program for the long-run. Viewed this way, President Obama is in the process of strengthening the presidency to fight terrorism.

UPDATE: David Brooks points out that the New Republic article debunks both Obama's and Cheney's dueling speeches this week.

Do you judge your presidents by the way they walk?

My mom realized she does when she live-blogged President Obama's first prime-time press conference tonight:

8:00: He ends exactly on the button. We hear a stomp as he steps off the podium, and his walk back into the White House is noticeably different from Bush's. How can I describe the different feeling I get from that walk? You can object to this if you want. It's just my feeling. I think Bush would walk away in a ritual fashion that said: I am the President and I have accomplished what the President must do. Obama's walk said: I'm a man who has this job and now I've done it and I'm out of here.

UPDATE: People are confused.

I want to do a post sometime about how instead of people trying to understand the exact point you're making, they take your comments and try to figure out which side you must be on; they then react not to the content of what you said, but to the side they infer you're on.

Let me tell you about the awesome musicians I know, part 3: Polydream (with free mp3 downloads!)

Continuing with the shameless plugs for music being made by friends of mine, it's ... Polydream.

That's them in the photo, which I took one afternoon by the lake in our hometown of Madison, Wisconsin.

Their drummer, Brit Rice (top left in the photo), is someone I've played in a few different bands with over the years, not to mention countless random jam sessions and State Street outings.

As far as their music, think: U2, Coldplay, Tom Petty, Death Cab for Cutie.

You know -- clean, crisp, optimistic rock music. The anti-grunge!

Other influences they cite: "the sky, the world, life, ladies, love, mountains, being on mountains, newspapers, domestic and international issues, you."

You can download 2 Polydream songs for free:

1. The anthemic "Catch Me If You Can." (If you're using a PC, you can download the song by right-clicking the link and selecting "Save Target As." If you're using a Mac, "control"-click the link and select "Download Linked File.")

It's the kind of song that you hear and think: "Wait a minute, I can't believe that song hasn't always been around." That's a very good thing.

And it features a children's choir! So I give them points for incongruity.

2. "Hollywood." (If you're using a PC, you can download the song by right-clicking the link and selecting "Save Target As." If you're using a Mac, "control"-click the link and select "Download Linked File.")

This song is so packed with imagery, expression, and a sense of motion -- I always picture an animated cartoon accompanying the lyrics when I listen to it.

Like a few of their other songs, "Hollywood" almost sounds like country, which would be amusing if you knew these guys.

I've been repeatedly listening to their new album, Send Me to the Sun, which you can buy on iTunes (or buy a physical CD here). I'm obviously biased, but I mean this: if you listen to the two sample songs linked above and you enjoy them, you cannot go wrong getting the whole album. While there are no weird curveballs -- those two songs convey the overall feel of the album -- there also aren't any two songs that sound alike. There are no "duds," and I don't think there's even a single moment where they don't stay committed to their characteristic sincerity and uplift.

If you're interested in background info, interviews, or reviews, see their Wikipedia entry. And here's their MySpace profile, which has free streaming songs, etc.

--

I'm in a never-ending, years-long argument with Polydream's singer, Jon Knudson (the fellow in the red shoes up there), about his embrace of Naderism -- or, the refusal to support the party most capable of implementing your own policy preferences instead of an unattainable ideal.

I shouldn't really single Jon out. I had this debate with probably 20 or 30 friends in 2000, when most residents of the far-left town of Madison were considering if not outright supporting Ralph Nader. (You saw more Nader yard signs than Gore and Bush yard signs put together.)

You have their counterparts in Florida to thank for all the Bush administration's actions and inaction, and the missed opportunity to have an intelligent, environmentalist president who believes a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body, believes that "gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women," and would have appointed two of the nine Supreme Court justices if he'd served a full two terms. Yes, let's remember the actual contributions that have been made by the far left in America: you have them to thank for the United States' environmental policies of the past 8 years, tax cuts overwhelming slanted toward the rich, and the deaths of who-knows-how-many innocent people in the Iraq war.

To my friends who supported Nader in 2000: have you discerned the subtle differences between Bush and Gore yet?

Admittedly, this is a transparent ploy to get Jon to show up in the comments section.

Oh, and sorry, Polydream guys, to turn this post about your music into a political tirade.

But hey ... at least I plugged your band.

--

RELATED: Reality for Hillary Clinton supporters.

Does it matter if McCain is email illiterate?

Yesterday I talked about whether John McCain's aging brain will make him too old to be president, but the buzz right now is around the fact that he doesn't know how to use a computer.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, it seems like a clear negative for the same reason that the former President Bush's supposed unfamiliarity with a supermarket scanner was a negative. In fact, it's much worse for a couple reasons: (1) The Bush/scanner story wasn't really fair to Bush. He was apparently humoring some grocers who were demonstrating a new-and-improved scanner at a technology exhibit. The basis of the McCain/computer story is several straightforward admissions by McCain himself, so you can't really say it's unfair. (2) Computers and the internet are approximately a zillion times more important than supermarket scanners.

On the other hand, to the extent that it's a negative at all, most voters will see it as a very slight negative. In 2000, one of the most biggest raps against Bush was his verbal slip-ups. (This was largely a proxy for intelligence, but the media was reluctant to make that point head-on because "intelligence" is so subjective and difficult to prove.) Do you think that really hurt Bush? Or did it help him by focusing people's attention on an extremely minor shortcoming instead of the major ones? It was also easy for the candidate and his surrogates to laugh it off and segue into "what the American people really care about."

And it was easy for us voters to engage in the sloppy reasoning that "If that's the worst they can say about him, he can't be all bad!"

But I think Jonathan Chait has a key point about why McCain's computer illiteracy, and particularly his email illiteracy, might actually matter:

I wonder if it's actually possible to be an effective president today without being able to access email or the internet. McCain's entire staff surely uses email to communicate virtually everything with each other. If McCain is never in the electronic loop, how is he supposed to manage that staff? All those stories about the chaotic nature of his campaign -- "a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds" -- actually make a lot more sense if you factor in McCain's total lack of emailing skill.

Here's the problem: "out of the loop in his own organizational structure" is unlikely to have the kind of resonance with the public as something like "flip-flopper" or "lefty."

But it seems pretty important. Someone who does a bad job at seeing the big picture of what everyone on his staff is saying, and who's faced with "a swirl of competing spheres of influence," might want to cut the Gordian knot by selecting a few advisors to fall back on. Isn't this more likely if the president isn't communicating with people by email?

Of course, even if McCain isn't able to sit down at a computer and email people, he could theoretically get around this by having incoming messages printed out for him to read, and dictating his outgoing messages. That's better than nothing, but it just doesn't seem good enough. If you have to miss an important meeting, it's nice to be able to read the minutes, but you really missed out by not being in the thick of things -- an active participant instead of a passive observer after the fact.

It used to be common to criticize email for taking us away from real life. But that cliche has become a moot point. For better or for worse, email is real life now, and it's only going to become more and more ubiquitous.

Back to the point about the connection between email illiteracy and loyalty. (I don't necessarily consider "loyalty" a positive term.) If I'm right about that, then that raises another question: Do we want a president who latches onto a few especially trusted advisors and gets his information heavily filtered through them? Didn't we invade Iraq because Bush was faced with an unwieldy ideological civil war within his administration and felt the need to use "loyalty" to a few of the more hawkish figures as a shortcut to avoid sifting through the details himself?

Depressing anecdote of the day: Zimbabwe food truck

This is the kind of thing that I see in the news, and for a split-second, I think, "Oh, good, I can totally blog that!" But then I think, "Oh, yet another example of adults the world would be better off without, considering how they think it's acceptable to treat children."

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the dilemma of sending humanitarian aid to foreign countries that might not go to good use. It's not clear that foreign aid sent to evil regimes is worthwhile even if it is used appropriately, let alone if it gets siphoned off by dictators.

That post was about Burma, but then I saw this more recent instance of the same general problem in Zimbabwe:

Zimbabwean authorities confiscated a truck loaded with 20 tons of American food aid for poor schoolchildren and ordered that the wheat and pinto beans aboard be handed out to supporters of President Robert Mugabe at a political rally instead....

As background: "agricultural production has collapsed over the past decade and millions of people would go hungry each year without emergency aid."

It's hard to imagine a more descipable handling of a humanitarian crisis ... but the Zimbabwe government has come up with a way. You see, they didn't just divert food earmarked for the hungry to use as political bribes. No, they went the extra mile and claimed they had to stop the humanitarian aid because Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, was using the aid as bribes!

That happened a couple weeks ago. Just yesterday, Tsvangirai withdrew from the election, saying that Mugabe was rendering it impossible to remove him from power.

In the end, the food-truck incident is probably a negligible piece of the overall problem. The immediate factor in cutting short the election seemed to be more overt violence. At a rally yesterday (right before the opposition withdrew), "rowdy youths, armed with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr. Tsvangirai." (See that link for a photo.) It's a war, not an election, the opposition leader said.

Marwick Khumalo, the leader of a watchdog group, helpfully explained: “How can you have an election where people are killed and hacked to death as the sun goes down? How can you have an election where the leader of one party is not even allowed to conduct rallies?”

A bit of perspective for Americans, with our endless back-and-forth whining about which side is suffering from worse media bias. For all the outrage over supposed unfairness, the fact is that we're free to say and do whatever we want in political campaigns. Our hair-trigger reactions to trumped-up injustices do a disservice to people in the world whose liberties are actually being curtailed.

And if you think that's pointing out such an obvious distinction that it goes without saying, well, remember that Hillary Clinton had a hard time seeing the difference between our elections and Zimbabwe's. Oh, that reminds me -- Hillary Clinton -- I'll get back to her soon...

(Photo of children in Zimbabwe by Steve Evans.)

History for Hillary Clinton supporters

As I said in my previous post on the idea that the media was sexist against Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, I still haven't gotten to what bothers me the most about that charge. So here it is.

A lot of the criticisms are based on the fact that some of the comments made about her have been superficial and trivial: her speaking voice, her display of cleavage.

I admit that when I see references to her legs or the fact that she wears pant suits, my reaction is: hey, that's sexist and unfair. So I'm not saying I approve of all this. (As I said before, though, it doesn't bother me for people to talk about her voice or cleavage.)

But it doesn't make sense to go from saying that the media's criticisms of her have been superficial ... to saying that Hillary in particular was hurt by sexism.

A presidential race is a zero-sum game. That means that anything that hurts one candidate has to help the other candidate. Therefore, if something "hurts" all the candidates, it really hurts none of them. If you're saying she was hurt by sexism, that's implying not just that there were unfair criticisms of her, but that they were criticisms of a sort that male candidates don't have to withstand.

Well, I agree that there have been some unfair criticisms of her. But to imply that male candidates aren't treated just as unfairly, or that the discussion of them isn't just as superficial? I mean, maybe you could believe that ... if you had never observed how any other presidential candidate has ever been treated.

I have some news for Clinton supporters who think that superficial criticisms of her are evidence of sexism:

PRESIDENTIAL RACES ARE UNFAIR

Media Focus on Candidates' Personal Quirks

Trivialities, Superficialities Discussed More Than Policy Issues

Barack Obama is criticized for not wearing an American flag pin on his lapel. His exotic name is a major topic of discussion among serious commentators.

John Edwards is ridiculed for seeming to spend too much time and money on his appearance.

Mitt Romney is criticized for being too polished and robotic, and his own staffers worry that his hair is "too perfect."

Bill Richardson receives little media attention despite having a more impressive resume than Clinton, Edwards, or Obama, and you have to wonder if the fact that he's not as conventionally attractive as those three candidates has something to do with it.

Before he officially enters the race, the media focuses on Fred Thompson more than any of his Republican rivals even though he doesn't have especially interesting ideas or accomplishments. The discussion in the media largely focuses on his perceived "sex appeal" and masculinity.

Dennis Kucinich is mocked as an elf-like creature whose wife is too attractive for him. While he might be too far left to have a real chance at becoming president, you have to wonder if he'd receive more favorable coverage if he had equally liberal positions but were a suave 6'4" man with a baritone voice.

John Kerry is criticized more for his stodgy demeanor than his policy stances — which the media don't report on because they're too busy mocking his rhetorically clumsy but substantively defensible statement that "I voted for it [one particular Iraq appropriations bill] before I voted against it [a related but significantly different bill]." It becomes common to talk about his horse face.

After Howard Dean loses the Iowa caucus in 2004, the media never report on him without mentioning that he let out an ill-considered yelp (which is always referred to as "the Dean scream") in an understandable effort to rally his supporters after a shocking defeat.

Dick Gephardt is routinely derided for lacking a "rock star" quality even though he's actually one of the most passionate speakers among the 2004 candidates.

Al Gore is criticized for seeming "stiff" and "wooden," for sighing heavily in a debate, for wearing "earth tones," and for walking over toward Bush in an awkward manner. He receives an enormous amount of attention for aggressively kissing his wife Tipper at the Democratic Convention -- a stunt clearly intended to broadcast his male sexuality.

George W. Bush is regularly mocked for stumbling over his words.

Bill Clinton is regularly mocked as fat.

George H.W. Bush is famously called a "wimp" on the cover of Newsweek magazine and is criticized for asking for a "splash" of coffee.

John F. Kennedy has a better tan and shave than Richard Nixon in a debate. This is widely seen as being a major factor in Kennedy's victory.

Presidential races are superficial and unfair. That's true whether the candidate is a Democratic or a Republican. It's true whether the candidate is a man or a woman. And it's unlikely to change in the near future.

(Photo of Edwards from the Edwards campaign.)

Reverse of cool

My post on Obama and the coolness factor drew a response from Stuff Running 'Round My Head, who points out that Bush is pretty clear proof that being a bumbling oaf is ... brace yourself ... a detrimental quality in a president. If having the-opposite-of-charisma can impair a presidency, then doesn't it follow that charisma can strengthen a presidency?

Take a look at Bush's well-meaning but cringe-inducing attempt to ingratiate himself to the Irish people, for instance:



If you watch his answer around 7:25 - 7:35, he looks like a forlorn child: "Really what you're talking about is France -- and uh, um ... [shakes head] ... they didn't agree with my decision ..."

In Bush's defense, the interviewer certainly wasn't helping. (What a way to start an interview with a visiting head of state: "Unfortunately, the majority of our public do not welcome your visit"!) But an Obama, a Blair, or a Bill Clinton would have made it go more smoothly. Even Hillary Clinton -- not the most charismatic or likable politician -- can stand up to the most incessant bluster and keep her cool more than Bush.

At this point, I realize I'm going way beyond my original "coolness matters" thesis. After all, I used Bush as a positive example in my original post. So focusing on the superficial is a double-edged sword. Charisma, of course, doesn't do much on its own -- you want it to coexist with nuance, intelligence, the ability to think on your feet. Let's just hope we get this powerful combination in January 2009.