When Thinking Doesn't Count

Charles Blow writes today in the New York Times about head versus "heart."

This underscores the current fight for the soul of this country. It’s not just a tug of war between left and right. It’s a struggle between the mind and the heart, between evidence and emotions, between reason and anger, between what we know and what we believe.

This conflict was captured in a tit-for-tat between Obama and Rush Limbaugh. In an interview with CBS this week, Obama complained about the “vitriol” coming from the likes of Limbaugh: “I think the vast majority of Americans know that we’re trying hard, that I want what’s best for the country.”

Limbaugh shot back on Friday, “I and most Americans do not believe President Obama is trying to do what’s best for the country.”

And there it was. Obama’s language focused on what people “know,” or should know. He seems to find comfort in the empirical nature of knowledge. It’s logical. Limbaugh’s language focused on what he thinks people “believe.” Beliefs are a more complicated blend of facts, or lies, and faith. And, they can exist beyond the realm of the rational.

And this is the part where I get really scared.

You see, I am a thinking person. I will look at facts. I will look at data. I will follow the trail. If I am worried about the provisions in the health care bill, I will read them for myself. And, I will change my mind when I am wrong.

Here's the scary part. There are many--and truly not all--people who are strongly against health care (really insurance) reform who are just making stuff up. These people are making stuff up all the time. They are in an alternative reality. Where birth certificates from a sovereign state are suspect and there is a great and evil communist-nazi conspiracy.

And the left, we are going with logic. And facts. And thoughtful arguments. If people only understood--the President seems to be saying--they would support.

They have the boogie man. Boogie man wins over thinking man.

Keep an eye on the elections. Thinking people need a new strategy.

Wrong Headline, Wrong Story

In the ongoing effort to make the 2008 Presidential Election all about race and increase readership or ratings or something, today's Washington Post has the inflammatory front page headline "3 In 10 Admit to Race Bias" and chronicles the trouble Barack Obama is having in getting the (play dramatic music) White Vote.

If you read on to paragraph 9 on the second page, you will discover what I found to be news. That is, Democrats running for president have been having trouble with the (play dramatic music) White Vote for the past few election cycles--and according to the article, this trend has been going on since Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.

This is hardly the first time a Democratic candidate has faced such a challenge -- Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points in 2000, and John F. Kerry lost them by 17 points in 2004 -- but it is a significantly larger shortfall than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton encountered in their winning campaigns. -- Wash Post

Somehow, though, the Post acts like Obama is having a problem with the (play dramatic music) White Vote because he is black. That's not what I see in the data.

Hey Post, I think that if you actually read your data--to make it easy I made a graph with a trendline--you would agree that the story is either

1. Dems have been in trouble with white voters for a while, OR
2. Obama's race doesn't seem to be having much of an impact on the voters--so far.

The Post piece is NOT good thinking.

'Bout Times

Looks like the NYTimes got cyber-religion.

After two-years of blocking off their money-columnists from non subscribers, and after two years (to the day, they say) of making any article more than two weeks old unavailable, the New York Times realized that this was not such a good idea.

Like people were not reading their columnists. And like the columnists didn't like this so much, either.

I was a Times Select subscriber for the first year. I thought that I couldn't live without Maureen Dowd, David Brooks and Frank Rich. Or without being able to retrieve an article from last month.

But what happened instead, was I left the NY Times as my primary news source and turned to the Post. Even though I had already paid. Weird.

It was like as I was trying to keep track of my columnists and getting my money's worth the Times lost value to me. I can't say why, but it did.

So when time came for my renewal, I didn't renew my subscription. I soon discovered that if there was a column that got my attention that I wanted to read, all I needed to do was search and I could find it.

The Times wants to regain those search eyeballs. Maybe I will read Dowd again. But maybe I have moved on.

Who Misses Rummy the Most?

Well, for years folks had been calling for the resignation of Don Rumsfeld. See here, here, and here for examples.

Now that he's gone, it looks like somebody new has taken his place--POTUS long-time confidant and current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales is on the top of the To Go menu.

The NYTimes, et al., chronicle politically motivated firings of political appointees, extra-curricular spying via a supra-Patriot Act, a starring role in warrantless eavesdropping and, of course, the Administration "interpretation" of the Geneva convention and humanitarian treatment of prisoners. Roll it up and you have some prime motivation for clearing the top of the deck at Justice.

I miss a Rumsfeld press conference. His sarcasm and disdain, while bad for public policy, did make for some diverting moments. Mr. Gonzales has been less than forthcoming, and much less entertaining

Somehow, though, I think that Fredo (AKA Alberto G.) wishes Rummy was around even more than me.