Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty
November 23, 2010
In This Issue . . .
1. In the Great Junk-Touching Fight of 2010, There Are No Winners
2. No Palin-Couric Rematch?
3. Al Gore Admits He Was a Ethanolic
4. Addenda
Hopefully by the time this reaches you, the morning's late-breaking news of North Korea firing shells will turn out to be a garden-variety Nork tantrum, instead of the first shots in a new war on the Korean peninsula . . .
Jim
1. In the Great Junk-Touching Fight of 2010, There Are No Winners
"Drudge Wins," charges Politico's Ben Smith. He posits: "The weekend collapse of the Administration's airline screening policy is hard to understand as a matter of messaging, with Clinton undermining the TSA's screening regime and the relevant official sending a hazy mixed message on the subject, even as the screening policy remains in place. There's no doubt about who won on this issue: Matt Drudge chose it and drove it, illustrating both his continued power and his great sense of the public mood, and it now seems a matter of time until he gets results. But the moment is also, a smart Democrat notes, representative of how this administration (and to be fair, everyone in public life) continues to wrestle with 'populism as narrated by the Drudge Report.'"
Not to take anything away from Drudge and how he's covered this continuing controversy, but Smith seems to make it sound like Matt has a giant "GENERATE OUTRAGE" button in his mysterious lair. Every once in a while, Drudge makes much ado about nothing -- I recall the hyping of a British paper's "Does John McCain have cancer?" speculation only to learn that McCain bumped his head getting out of a helicopter. But in those cases, the hype hurricanes dissipate quickly. No media entity can make the public care about something that they're thoroughly and genuinely uninterested in; if you really don't care about Dancing with the Stars, no amount of dramatic metaphors can persuade you it's a key indicator of Sarah Palin's chances in 2012.
No, Drudge just recognized that air travel already stinks, Americans already hate that they're all treated as potential terrorists, too many TSA employees already behave in an unprofessional manner, and in this shameless, too-often too-crude culture, giving $24K-to-$34K-per-year employees the power to touch strangers' body parts is an invitation for chaos. At its heart, this policy is a reflection of the fact that our entire concept of the TSA bureaucracy prevents screeners from making judgment calls. Everything must have a national policy. Everything must have a checklist. Every decision must be able to survive the scrutiny of a gamut of lawyers.
The indicators of public outrage, disbelief, and incredulousness continue. On Monday night, Letterman's Top Ten List was about this topic. He suggested that aspiring TSA employees ask themselves if they really want their new job to include feeling the inside thighs of a fat guy.
Intriguingly, a pro-Obama site, Venice for Change, concludes that "Hillary Clinton gets it; President Obama not so much."
Allahpundit, writing at Hot Air, points out that public attitudes about this will probably be set in concrete by early next week: "In any case, and needless to say, the acid test on all this is what happens tomorrow through Sunday, when a whole lot of Americans will get a taste of the new procedures firsthand. I think William Saletan's right that "Opt Out Day" is apt to generate more of a backlash towards TSA skeptics than towards TSA itself as harried passengers stuck in line scream at them to just go through the scanner already. And if TSA can convince the public that the scanners are safe -- which they are, provided that they're only emitting the amount of radiation they're supposed to emit -- then this week might actually lead many fliers to develop a comfort level with the new procedures."
2. No Palin-Couric Rematch?
Hearing that Sarah Palin is refusing to do another interview with Katie Couric, I was shocked. Katie Couric is still on the air?
Time's Mark Halperin was among the first with Sarah Palin's remarks, which were: "As for doing an interview, though, with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say? Why waste my time? No. . . . I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported. And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us. So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her. Or him."
At Contentions, Jen Rubin thinks this is potentially a major mistake: "If you haven't noticed, I'm not a fan of many of the mainstream-media interviewers (or Couric's comment about the 'unwashed' Americans), but come on. How's Palin supposed to broaden her appeal and show her mettle if she avoids settings in which she's going to face skeptical questioning? Can you imagine Ronald Reagan pulling this?
"Or, more to the point, who can forget George H.W. Bush telling off Dan Rather? It's in hostile encounters that candidates show their stuff and demonstrate good humor. Palin has become so accustomed to feeding the base what it wants to hear that she risks proving her critics' point: that she is too divisive and, frankly, defensive to win the presidency. Rather than hiding from Couric, shouldn't Palin invite her up for a bear hunt? I mean, isn't that the sort of thing a strong-willed, defiant conservative woman would do?"
Tim Graham is more positive. "There you have it: 'Read my lips: No new Couric interviews.' It's a little bit like George W. Bush consistently denying any interview to Dan Rather. He would talk to Scott Pelley (and Couric) at CBS, but not to Rather. On Twitter, Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast offered protest: 'Palin on Couric: Won't "waste my time" w/ "reporter who already has such a bias." Name 1 Katie question that was unfair' . . . Start with Couric asking Palin about another Great Depression, and then she turned around and protested to McCain that using phrases like 'Great Depression' is reckless. Brent Baker offered an effective side-by-side comparison of the Palin and Biden treatments at the time."
3. Al Gore Admits He Was a Ethanolic
Now Al Gore tells us, or more specifically Reuters: "Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was 'not a good policy,' weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31. Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy.
"'It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol,' said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank. 'First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small. It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.'
"He explained his own support for the original program on his presidential ambitions. 'One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.'"
I suppose he just stared at a cornfield and he heard a voice saying, "If you build it, they will come."
Doug Powers is surprised by the admission, but contends it doesn't tell us much that we didn't suspect about Gore's motives: "Translation: I promoted something I knew couldn't work and ultimately cost taxpayers a fortune, all for my own political, and ultimately financial, gain. What else is Al lying about? Let's start with 'everything' and work backwards."
Moe Lane is entertained: "The whole thing is fascinating reading: so much so that you have to wonder whether Gore has either been replaced with his Evil Twin, or (more likely) he's simply heavily invested in second-generation biofuels, which are not made from corn. If the latter, well, it'd make a certain amount of sense for him to publicly and explicitly no longer care about farmers in Tennessee and Iowa, given that Al Gore is never, ever going to be able to become President ever again."
Jonathan Adler, writing at Volokh, declares, "If Republicans fail to take action on ethanol, it will demonstrate the shallowness of their commitment to limiting government largesse and give credence to arguments that Republicans are only for less government when it's good for special interests."
4. Addenda
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Congressman Solomon Ortiz conceded last night after a recount, about three weeks after his son, Solomon Ortiz Jr., lost his reelection bid in the state legislature. So much for the benefit of a well-known name. |
