Eric The Blue

Some notes on Henry Fairlie

1. For those who are familiar with him, certain biographical details were probably the source of initial interest--the homelessness when at the height of his fame, most prominently.  Fairlie's brilliance as a political journalist was surpassed, possibly, by his irresponsibility with money.  Evicted from his Washington apartment, he took to sleeping on the couch in his office at The New Republic. He had no other place to go.  Elsewhere in the office complex there was a shower he could sometimes use.  Whatever the effect on his hygiene, his productivity did not suffer.  Colleagues stopping in the office during off hours were frequently surprised to hear the clickety-clack of his typewriter in the middle of the night--and, peering in, startled to discover Fairlie, looking either very rumpled or too undressed to qualify, so lost in the act of composition as to be oblivious of his visitor.  Thus the recurrence of "raffish" in the testimony of his peers.  The boozing and apparently eventful love life didn't hurt, either.

2. A Brit and a staunch Tory, Fairlie emigrated to the United States in the mid-60s, when he was fortyish.  He loved his new country but regarded with aversion its conservative political party.  Perusing the Table of Contents in Bite the Hand That Feeds You, the posthumously collected collection of essays that stole its name from Fairlie's working title for his unfinished memoir, the eye falls on not only "Mencken's Booboisie in Control of GOP" and "If Pooh Were President: A Tory's Riposte to Reaganism," but also on "In Defense of Big Government" and "The Voice of Hope: Franklin D. Roosevelt."

3. The most enjoyable essay in Bite the Hand is called "Tory Days: George F. Will."  It qualifies as an exercise in expert vituperation, but one can hear between the lines, I think, the indignation of the boy who's done his homework and is distressed to find the objects of his loving study worn like baubles by a hooker.  It's as good a place as any to dip in for a sample of his prose style:

Still, the most bizarre genealogical claim for his ideas appears in Statecraft, a slim book that we are nonetheless entitled to take--since he so presents it--as his testament.  "When a kind reader calls me unpredictable, I am tempted to respond: to anyone sufficiently familiar with the minds of the Oxford Movement, circa 1842, all my conclusions are predictable."  Of course few Americans, even if  Will were among them, are "sufficiently familiar" with the Oxford Movement to know what he is talking about.  We can only ponder, not to his credit, why the claim is made.  There is no explanation.  It is thrown in.  Nothing follows from it.

[Snip]

With these lists, with the individual names he is always tossing out, in, and over his shoulder, we come to Will's famous use of quotations.  His critics are usually satisfied to call it intellectual and cultural name dropping.  But Will's practice suggests a far more serious disorder.  At times explicitly, but also implicitly in his whole posture, Will puts himself forward as an almost lone defender of our Western cultural heritage (but with support from William J Bennet).  And yet he rummages among its thought and literature like a bag lady. . . .  [T]he parentheses are unforgivably tawdry: "Santayana and Plato, both of them clever fellows."  "Dostoevsky (who knew something about crime and punishment) . . . ."

[Snip]

What is absent from Will's list of names, from his entire papier-mache model of Western culture, is a recognition of struggle--of the struggle of idea against idea in the civilization as a whole, of the strenuous and tormented struggle between the individual thinkers and artists he so lightly robs, like a pick-pocket. . . .  In this he reflects a persistent shallowness in American conservatism, not least in the alleged "revival" of conservative thought in recent years.  There is no quest in it.

And the rest are mainly booboisies.

4. Of particular local interest is an excerpt from the never-published Journey Into America, a sprawling account of Fairlie's grand tour through our country, taking in the sights and talking to its citizens.  This endeavor brought him one night to the Shamrock, a bar in Mankato, Minnesota, where he met a man named Hooter, the subject of "An Evening with Hooter" in Bite the Hand. 

 

Annette Meeks on the electoral college

Annette Meeks is one of the big thinkers of the local wing-nut faction.  She's known, among other things, for arguing that the office of lieutenant governor be abolished, then accepting Tom Emmer's invitation to run for lieutenant governor.  Here she writes in defense of the electoral college.  Let's hear her in her own words, with reality interpolated.

Sometimes the biggest changes happen when no one is looking. A small but committed national group has descended upon the Minnesota Legislature with a plan to quietly change how America elects its president. With 10 paid lobbyists and many more paid consultants in state, the National Popular Vote movement appears determined to make Minnesota the next to sign on to its interstate compact.

She makes supporters of the National Popular Vote movement sound like members of an unusually sinister cabal.  Actually, the only object is to get state legislators to adopt a rule whereby their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote--but only when states possessing 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win in the electoral college, have opted in to the compact.  The proceedings of state legislatures are open and free and governed by rules that the National Popular Vote movement observes.

Ten paid lobbyists!  OMG!  Our politics are so corrupt!

The purpose of this compact is simple: It would dictate that Minnesota’s 10 presidential electors be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote for president, rather than to the candidate who received the highest number of votes from Minnesotans. It is an end run around the purposefully difficult process of amending the U.S. Constitution. Our legislators should prevent this from becoming law.

There is a reason Meeks only suggests underhandedness instead of declaring that laws are being broken.  Here is what the Constitution says on the matter:  "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors."  There is no reason to amend the Constitution.  All that's necessary is to persuade states to change the manner of their direction.  That's what the National Popular Vote movement is trying to do.

Since 2006, a tax-exempt nonprofit with a well-funded lobbying arm has attempted to “right the wrong” of the 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, in which Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College tally. The results will be debated in constitutional law classes for many years to come. Yet the scenario has occurred only four times since the Constitution was ratified 225 years ago. It had been more than a century since it had happened prior to Bush vs. Gore — a pretty good track record for the Electoral College system.

This is incoherent.  Meeks seems to acknowledge that it is a kind of an error when the candidate receiving the most national votes loses the national election.  Well, the remedy is at hand.  Four errors wouldn't have occurred. 

Supporters of NPV have gained ground with legislators by saying that “[I]n a democracy, the winner should win — not the candidate who can game the system to get the most electoral votes.” This quote is from Thomas Golisano, a New York millionaire activist and one of the principal funders of NPV.

What supporters of NPV don’t want you to know is what Golisano said after that sentence: “We can easily change to a system where the candidate with the most votes always win” (emphasis added).

Supporters of NPV have gained ground with their arguments because they are good arguments.  All Meeks seems to have are these dark, false pictures she paints.  Does she have anything more?

Golisano and his troops are attempting to “easily change” our voting system by circumventing the difficult process of actually amending the U.S. Constitution. Why? Because they acknowledge that a constitutional amendment would never be enacted, since a majority of states would lose their ability to remain “players” in the presidential sweepstakes. In essence, small states would be forgotten while presidential candidates focused their attention on the large media markets and densely populated coastal states. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, 29 states “lose influence from the move to direct election.”

Such small states as Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii receive no attention whatever from the nominated presidential aspirants of our two parties.  It therefore appears that Meeks must have a private definition of "players."  I wish she would divulge it, for the weakness of her argument would not then be obscured by vagueness.

So Golisano and his troops are pursuing an NPV “state compact” in place of the arduous task of amending the Constitution.

Yes, yes, you've already said that, and I've already explained why it's a lot of hooey.

Our founding fathers specifically rejected direct election of the president, fearing the control large states would have over those more sparsely populated. At the Constitutional Convention, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina said that the “most populous States by combining in favor of the same individual will be able to carry their points.” Minnesotans can be thankful that delegates rejected the idea of a national direct election. The Electoral College system, as well as an extremely engaged state electorate, has made Minnesota a player in nearly every presidential election, even for Republican presidential candidates who haven’t seen victory in Minnesota since 1972.

Oh, yes, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina!  At the Constitutional Convention, he proposed the Fugitive Slave Clause, which was eventually adopted (Article 4, Section 2).  It was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, but we are still stuck with the electoral college.  That its original appeal is connected to the maneuverings of slave owners fearful of their interests being defeated at the polls in direct elections does not seem to me like a very good advertisement for the electoral college.

In the last sentence, the recurrence of "player," now augmented by murky syntax, has the possibly deliberate effect of obscuring the implausibility of what Meeks says.  If Minnesota is a "player," why don't the candidates come here to campaign?  Is a state, just by virtue of being a state, a "player"?  If so, what is the point of saying this state and that one are "players"?

Notice that Meeks, citing the right-wing Heritage Foundation, backhandedly admitted in a previous paragraph that 21 states would gain influence from the move to direct election of the president.  Would one be California?  Would another be Texas?  Would a third be New York?  Why so much emphasis on states and so little on voters?

If Meeks thought most voters would lose influence by a move to direct election, I bet she'd say so.

The uniqueness of America’s political process must not be taken for granted. Presidential elections matter in every corner of this country. It’s important that candidates appeal to a broad cross-section of the electorate from all regions. Our presidential election process is really 50 diverse state elections occurring on the same day. It was designed to be a difficult process, and it remains so. But most important, it’s a process that is extremely difficult to manipulate — it requires campaigns to focus on garnering a majority of the Electoral College votes, which allows small states like Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin to remain “players” as campaign strategists understand that candidates can cobble together smaller states to achieve victory.

That presidential elections matter in every corner of our country is a girl scout's cliche.  The outcome matters, but the outcome is determined in about eight so-called "swing states."  The rest of us are spectators.  Maybe Meeks doesn't comprehend this, but the candidates show they do by spending all their time and money chasing the only votes that matter. 

A "broad cross-section of the electorate"?  That  must be why we are quadrennially subjected to endless disquisitions concerning the views of "auto workers in northwestern Ohio" and "Mormons in Nevada."  Meanwhile, most of the rest of us are ignored, our ballots so discounted as to be practically worthless.  For Democrats in red states and Republicans in blue ones, the only way to have a voice is to give large sums of cash. 

Yes, our "political process" is characterized by its "uniqueness."

Under the NPV plan, a presidential campaign would likely never darken the doors of Bemidji or Rochester. It could focus on the millions of voters in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. This compact seeks to destroy the genius of the existing electoral process and federalize our presidential election.

They don't go to Bemidji or Rochester now.  Calling out Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, like the earlier reference to Gore v. Bush, is a dog whistle.  And "federalize" is a silly pejorative.  The presidency is a national office.  A presidential election, therefore, should be--a national election.

Our diversified state-based system of elections helps preserve liberty by decentralizing our presidential election. Under our republican form of government, states were given the power to run elections, and that system continues to function pretty well.

This is cant.  How is liberty preserved by turning over the selection of the Chief Executive to the voters of Ohio, Florida, Viriginia, and a handful of other states?

We cannot allow a well-funded and determined group of individuals to quietly undermine a central tenet of our Constitution with their solution in search of a problem.

The adjective "well-funded" would more accurately describe the recipients of Sheldon Adelson's largesse.  The constitutional claim, for reasons I have explained, is bogus.  And a "solution in search of a problem" would more accurately describe, say, voter ID laws.  The deficiencies of the electoral college are obvious to sentient beings.

The map above shows, by state, the number of campaign events hosted during the 2012 general election campaign.

Anticipating Mad Men, Season 7

It must not be the story.  I just read the Wikipedia article to make sure that I remembered how things stood at the end of last season, and discovered that I was remembering the end of season 5.  I like a drink in the evening, two on Sunday to fortify me for what's ahead, but  I didn't think it would prevent season 6 from making any impression on my memory.  Poosh.

I think what I like most is what the real critics call "visual style"--that, together with the subject of this style being the way things looked when I was young.  Everyone except the young must feel attracted to anything that puts them in mind of when they were young.  I wonder whether it's possible that in this last season the closing credits to one of the episodes will be accompanied by "Radar Love."

Maybe my favorite moment of the series so far concerns the events of Friday, November 22, 1963.  Duck Williams, one of the show's many alcoholic ad men, is in a Manhattan hotel room waiting for Peggy Olson, his lunch date.  He's in bed.  The TV is on.  Peggy walks in.  He turns off the TV.  This must be an example of what scholars call "the private side of American history."

Much ado about Shakespeare

Discussing the options at Southwest High's "summer enrichment" program at the supper table, our 11-year-old made it pretty clear that "Much Ado About Shakespeare" is not for her.  She went so far as to suggest that Shakespeare is for "loser dweebs" like her loser dweeb stepdad.  I have to admit, the peppy course description, emphasizing how kids only THINK Shakespeare is boring, protested way too much.  Also, I've recently reread Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, and, even putting aside language difficulties, the plays are disorienting. 

I mean mainly that the plots don't make very much sense.  The whole set-up to King Lear seems implausible.  Why does the king insist that his daughters flatter him?  Considering that he does, why won't Cordelia play along?  It's preposterous.  In Macbeth, the two principals seem to trade characters off stage, between scenes.  First, he's cracking under the stress while she tries to prop him up; then, next time she's on stage, it's her mind that's diseased and he's putting on his armor.

Hamlet is the most perplexing.  It's been pointed out that, in the old play from which Shakespeare took the story, Hamlet is a mere boy, the king knows he knows, and the boy feigns madness in order not to be immediately killed.  Shakespeare's changes remove the motivation for the main character to pretend to be crazy, yet his main character pretends to be crazy, too.  It's a strategy without an objective.

Maybe the easiest true thing to say about this is that plots and plausibility don't help create in the theatre a whirling nightmare of an experience.  If it makes sense, it won't seem disturbing enough.  I don't think these plays are boring but I can see why normal young people wouldn't care for them.

Someone else speaks up for the Electoral College; I demur

Frank Bures, like other defenders of the Electoral College (Commentary, April 3), seems determined to ignore the world in which he presumably lives.

Everyone who pays attention knows that presidential candidates ignore the citizens of forty or more states in order to lavish their time and money  on one or two handfuls of "battleground states."   But here comes Bures to assure us that this must be an illusion and that "mathematically" the Electoral College has the effect of "increasing the voting power of every person in the country"--including, presumably, all the voters of California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Utah, Wyoming and every other state whose citizens, on account of the Electoral College, are snubbed by presidential aspirants.

It turns out that we are to ignore what's in plain sight and consider instead that it's more likely that a candidate carries Minnesota by a single vote, and therefore prevails in the Electoral College, than that a candidate wins the national popular vote by a single ballot.  Consequently, says Bures, the Electoral College magnifies the value of every vote. 

You'd have to be a sucker to fall for this pitch.  The chance of Bures's scenarios being realized are zero and zero, respectively.  Moreover, if you happen to be a Republican living in New York or a Democrat living in Utah, you are a sucker if you think it matters whether you even vote.  The Electoral College has the practical effect of disenfranchising you.  There is no chance that your vote will help elect the next president.  And, unless you too inhabit some alternative universe, it is impossible for you not to know this as you consider whether or not to vote. 

The mathematical considerations that apply to the Electoral College are not the surreal ones advanced by Bures.  In the last election, 170,000 Romney voters in Wyoming secured for the Republican nominee 3 electoral votes.  Meanwhile, in California, 6.5 million Obama voters put 55 electoral votes in his column. 

The Electoral College is a gob of spit in the face of "one person, one vote."  But it will never be abolished by constitutional amendment.  For that would require state legislators in small states to put the national interest before their ability to do long division.

Which is why the National Popular Vote movement is such an inspired stroke for what would be an exemplary reform.

 

McCutcheon: I agree with the girls

To someone like me, unburdened by a legal education, the decision of the Supreme Court in the McCutcheon case is as odd as the notion that the Constitution confuses speech and expression with spending lots of money.  The framers could have said that Congress shall make no law abridging the right of oligarchs to pour money into political campaigns.  Instead, they wrote:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Where are the originalists when you need them?  No one is saying that rich guys can't write op-eds railing against the "death tax."  That would violate the First Amendment.  Hell, Rush Limbaugh is trumpeting his idiocy from sea to shining sea, and who says he can't?  He can express his views, and those of us in the reality-based community can suggest that his political opinions are of a piece with the juicy boils that evidently adorn his ass.

Congress, however, having heard from petitioning citizens seeking redress of their grievances, has passed laws that keep rich guys from donating unspeakable sums to an array of candidates, then inviting them over for cocktails before the big vote.  If they say their constitutional rights are being trampled, I say buy your own effing media company and say what's on your mind.  People who can afford anything are frustrated when some things aren't for sale.  It doesn't follow that eveything should be for sale.

I would think that I am just innocent but there are four lawyers on the Supreme Court who seem to see it my way.  (I see that three of them are the women on the high court, which reminds me that, except on the allure of ice dancing, I always side with the chicks.)  The decision of the majority, written by Chief Justice Roberts, doesn't at all persuade me.  Here he is, in full stride:

Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official duties, does not give rise to such quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner “influence over or access to” elected officials or political parties. And because the Government’s interest in preventing the appearance of corruption is equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, the Government may not seek to limit the appearance of mere influence or access.

Let me translate.  Blatant corruption in the form of tit-for-tat payoffs, which some people call bribery, is out of bounds.  Luckily, it's hard to prove that an office-holder voted a certain way because he was paid off.  It could be that, on the merits, he just happens to agree with rich guys who gave him a ton of dough.  So, have at it!