Clinton Nostalgia vs Clinton Fatigue

The dynamic of the Democratic primaries (and of the general election, should Clinton become the Democratic nominee) has a lot to do with the tension between two opposing forces: Clinton nostalgia, and Clinton fatigue. Voters who long for the good old days of Bill's presidency tend to support Hillary. Voters who are glad the Clinton White House is over tend to support someone else. The question is, which force is stronger? I think the answer here is: fatigue.

Part of what makes nostalgia such a fine feeling is that often the past seems more pleasant in memory than it was in reality. Ordinarily, the reality of the past can't gainsay the pleasures of nostalgia because the past is, by definition, gone. But this is not the case in the election at hand.

The Clintons have injected Bill into the race to such an extent that a derogatory (yet not inaccurate) word I haven't much seen since 1996 -- Billary -- is back in vogue. I noticed it in Colbert King's column in yesterday's Washington Post (Billary's Adventures in Primaryland), then again this morning in Frank Rich's column from the New York Times (The Billary Road to Republican Victory).

In fact, the Clintons have played the Bill card so aggressively that judging from Hillary's news conference following her defeat in South Carolina, you would think Bill is the candidate and Hillary his spokesperson:

"Clinton was asked if she thought Sen. Barack Obama is the Jesse Jackson of 2008. She did not answer the question, and instead spoke about what she views as the great things President Clinton has done in his life. 'Bill Clinton is somebody who brought out country together. He understands what it takes to repair the breaches and hopefully mend the divides that have stalked us for so long and his record speaks to that.'

"Clinton continued, 'I think Americans from every community know what his life's work has been and they really know his heart.'

"When questioning turned back to President Clinton, the Senator said 'his life's work has been about bringing people together.'"

What the Clintons have done, therefore, is to make the past live again. And the sharp reality of the resurrected past seems to be eclipsing the fuzzy nostalgia that preceded it. In South Carolina exit polls, "Roughly 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters said Bill Clinton's campaigning was important in how they ultimately decided to vote, and of those voters, 48 percent went for Barack Obama while only 37 percent went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent of those voters voted for John Edwards."

In other words, about 62% of South Carolina Democratic voters who were affected by Bill's role voted against Hillary. And there's more:

"Meanwhile, the exit polls also indicate Obama easily beat Clinton among those voters who decided in the last three days — when news reports heavily covered the former president's heightened criticisms of Obama. Twenty percent of South Carolina Democrats made their decision in the last three days and 51 percent of them chose Obama, while only 21 percent picked Clinton.

"Bill Clinton's presence on the trail was 'very important' to roughly a quarter of those surveyed. Among those voters, Hillary Clinton edged out Barack Obama, 46 to 42 percent."

For me, that feels like Clinton fatigue eclipsing Clinton nostalgia.

If I'm right in believing the unwelcome reality of the past will trump the nostalgia of the present, then the longer Hillary and Bill are in the limelight, the more Hillary's candidacy will falter. Even if she manages to survive her growing weakness throughout the primary and become the Democratic nominee, Clinton fatigue will continue to worsen, and the Democrats would be sending an increasingly debilitated candidate into the general election. I hope the Democrats will be smarter than that. Nostalgia is a weak foundation for a campaign. Not just because campaigns are and ought to be about the future, but because when reality intrudes upon nostalgia, it tends to ruin the reverie.

P.S. I've received quite a few messages asking if I'm a Democrat. The answer is no -- I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and have voted for candidates from both parties. More than anything else, I would describe myself as a libertarian, which means I probably won't ever have a comfortable home in either party. Regardless, I think the Republicans have so lost sight of their principles (small government, realistic foreign policy, fiscal responsibility, respect for individual privacy) that they need an intervention. If the Republicans lose badly, I hope they'll take advantage of the experience to get their act together. Which would be good for them, and good for the country. That's why in this election I've been more invested in the Democrats fielding a strong candidate than in who the Republicans might nominate.

The Low Dollar Border Fence

It's clear to me from listening to snippets of the Republican debates that the Bush administration is taking heat for America's broken borders. But I don't think the president is receiving adequate credit for what he's doing to combat illegal immigration. After all, won't a plummeting dollar discourage illegal immigration? If I were thinking about sneaking into America to earn dollars that I could send home to my family, at this point I might consider a country in the Euro zone, instead.

If the Bush administration can continue to drive down the value of the dollar, it's possible they won't just discourage new illegal immigration -- they might even encourage illegals who are already here to go somewhere else, where they could be paid in a sounder currency.

Of course I'm being slightly facetious and I'm no economist, but I imagine there must be some correlation between the strength of a country's currency and its attractiveness to immigrants, legal and illegal, who hope to send money to family back home. If anyone knows more about this correlation and could send me a link or two, I'd be grateful.

Boxing, Judo, and Politics

Last night I watched some snippets from the South Carolina Democratic debate. As an Obama supporter, I came away frustrated. Hillary* offered up many of the same distortions she and Bill have been feeding into the news cycle over the past week. Obama seemed to think the debate was a good venue to set the record straight with some vigorous counterpunching. He was mistaken both about the strategy and the tactics. The response to a slime campaign like the Clintons' isn't boxing; it's judo. And the goal isn't to set the record straight; it's to change the terms of the debate itself.

Here's the gist of one exchange:

Obama: You and Bill are distorting my statements.
Hillary: The fact is, you said you really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last fifteen years.** And we can give you the exact quote.*** The Republicans had bad ideas.
Obama: I didn't say nice things about Reagan.
Hillary: I didn't say you did. I said you said nice things about the Republicans.
Obama: I said nice things about Reagan's style, but I fought against his substance while you were a corporate lawyer for Wal-Mart. And you praise Reagan in a book about to be published.
Hillary: I never accused you of saying nice things about Reagan by name.
Obama: Your husband did.
Hillary: You said the Republicans had good ideas.
Obama: I didn't say they were good ones.

Get the idea? Jab. Parry. Straight right. All people come away with is that a lot of punches were thrown. Probably Hillary stretched the truth in some places, probably Obama did in others (a pretty accurate assessment, I would argue, even if Hillary is worse). But this is a communications victory for Hillary because, as the one running the negative campaign, her objective is to suggest that at least some of her distortions are true while at least some of Obama's truths are distortions. A game of tit for tat suits her purposes.

Obviously, Obama shouldn't play Hillary's game. Here's the game I wish he would play:

Obama: You and Bill are distorting my statements.
Hillary: The fact is, you said you really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last fifteen years. And we can give you the exact quote. The Republicans had bad ideas.
Obama: Wait a minute, Hillary. Sure I said some complimentary things, mostly about Reagan's leadership style, but also about some aspects of the Republican party he led. Are you saying it's impermissible to say something nice about Republicans?
Hillary: Well...
Obama: No, really. This is bizarre. All week long, you and Bill have been attacking me for saying something mildly complimentary about another political party. Is there nothing worthwhile about the Republican party? Not a single nice thing we're allowed to say? They represent about half the country... you can't think of a single nice thing to say about half the country? What are you talking about? Half the country is all bad?
Hillary: You said you liked the Republican's ideas. That's a fact. I can back it up with a quote.
Obama: Hillary, I challenge you. Right here, tonight. Say something nice about the Republican party, which represents half the voters in our country. Don't be afraid. For once in your life, drop the triangulation and the doublespeak and the negativity and say one positive thing about the other side. I know you can do it.

Here, the best Hillary could reach for would be a joke -- something like, "Well, they could start a great white-males-only country club." Then, when the laughter died down, Obama could conclude this way:

Obama: Good for you, Hillary. You've proven it's okay to find something positive from time to time, even in the opposition. And now I challenge you to run your campaign that way. Drop the juvenile nonsense about "Obama said something nice about the other party!" and the other distortions and demagoguery and try campaigning on all that experience you claim to have. Even if it's not enough for you to win, you'll elevate the debate and do the country a service.

Yes, I have the full benefit of hindsight and no debate pressure in which to think this up. But the specific execution is less important than an understanding of the objective. And the objective is not to stand fast and slug it out, but to step away from the attack so that it's revealed for the foolishness it is and force your off-balanced opponent to respond now on your terms, not on hers. Obama tried this a little, but more in the way of counteraccusations (you were a fat cat lawyer!) than of an actual change in the foundation of the argument.

Hint: "You did it, too!" is a counter-argument. The question, "Are you saying..." is the prelude to a possible debate-changer. Obama needs to figure this out before Hillary drags him down to her level. At her level, she wins the nomination. And the Republicans win the election.


*Occasionally I've been criticized for referring to Hillary by her first name. I do so only as a matter of shorthand, to distinguish her from Bill. As Bill becomes increasingly prominent in Hillary's campaign, the shorthand becomes increasingly convenient. If there were another candidate with the last name Obama, I'd be calling Obama Barack.

**Here's what Obama actually said:

"I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I mean, I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60's and the 70's and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating and he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is, people wanted clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamic and entrepreneurship that had been missing, alright? I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times.

"I think we're in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren't working. We're bogged down in the same arguments that we've been having, and they're not useful. And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they're being debated among the Presidential candidates and it's all tax cuts. Well, you know, we've done that, we tried it. That's not really going to solve our energy problems, for example. So, some of it's the times. And some of it's, I think, there's maybe a generation element to this, partly. In the sense that there's a, I didn't did come of age in the battles of the 60's. I'm not as invested in them."

***Hint: when a politician tells you he can give you the exact quote, he is lying both about the quote and about what he claims it will support. The claim is intended to sound confident when spoken and the politician knows no one will follow up on it later. Even if anyone does, the politician will offer up something tangential, and by then the news cycle will have moved on. Also note how many times Hillary says she wants to "be clear" or "be very explicit" or "clarify the record" about something. When a politician talks that way, do you sense clarity on the way? Or obfuscation?

You Betcha

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell acknowledges in an interview in the January 21 New Yorker that to him, being waterboarded would be torture. But he won't opine about whether waterboarding is torture legally speaking because "If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it."

Engaging in it? What about the people who *ordered* it? The US is a party to the Geneva Conventions and to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment of Punishment. Both prohibit torture; both, by virtue of Article VI of the Constitution, are the Law of the Land in the United States.

A violation of a treaty obligation is therefore a violation of US law. A conviction for violating of US law -- aka, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" -- is grounds for removal from office pursuant to the Constitution's Article II, Section 4. That is:

ordering waterboarding = ordering torture = high crime = impeachment offense

Still wondering why the CIA destroyed the torture tapes?

Two interesting pieces from the front page of today's Wall Street Journal. First, "A CIA official apparently acted against superiors' wishes when he ordered the destruction of interrogation tapes, said Rep. Hoekstra after a closed hearing in which the agency's acting counsel testified." Second, "The White House said it reused backup email computer tapes before October 2003, possibly erasing messages pertaining to the Iraq war and the CIA-leak case."

Right now, the White House has two imperatives: (1) sever links between the White House and waterboarding to create deniability (the narrative then becomes, yes, waterboarding happened; no, we did not authorize or order it); (2) obscure any evidence that the White House has directed a coverup (the narrative then becomes, anyone who destroyed evidence related to waterboarded did so on his own initiative, or else the evidence was lost accidentally).

My guess is that the "lost" emails included information on who in the White House specifically ordered or authorized that prisoners be waterboarded. Expect additional such "accidents."

Unsurprisingly, McConnell insisted in his interview that "We don't torture" and instead use "special methods" of interrogation. Equally unsurprisingly, the "special methods" have worked:

"Have we gotten meaningful information? You betcha. Tons! Does it save lives? Tons! We've gotten incredible information."

Let me ask you something about this speech pattern. If it came from a salesman, especially one on commission, would you trust him? Would you believe in what he was selling?

Update: A great post on the CIA's destruction of its interrogation tapes, on why it ordered that such taping cease, and on how to address such problems going forward. More on my website discussion board.

Rove, McCarthy, Clinton

This morning, Bill Clinton claimed to have a "list of 80 attacks on Hillary that are quite personal by Senator Obama and his campaign going back six months that I've pulled."

I read this and wondered, "Why does this sound familiar?" And then I remembered: "Right, there was that other guy, although his list was longer, coming in at 205... what was his name again? Joe McCarthy, that's right."

I can't find Clinton's list, despite searching for it online, so I gather he hasn't gotten around to producing it yet. I doubt he ever will; after all, Joe McCarthy never released his. If Clinton is forced to release the list he claims to have compiled (I imagine advisors are feverishly putting one together as we speak), I expect that at best we'll find the former president has trouble distinguishing between a political criticism and a personal attack.

Doe Bill expect to be called on this? Yes. Does he care? No. His objective is to use the vestiges of his bully pulpit to get the "list of 80 personal attacks" into the news cycle and use it to chip away at the moral high ground Obama rightly occupies. The next step will be to resist calls for him to produce the list, thereby keeping the meme "80 personal attacks" in the news cycle and cementing it in people's minds. After that, Clinton will release highlights. After that, additional points, which will produce discussion about what's personal and what's political. And finally, when the smoke clears, people are supposed to remember, "Well, Obama's not such a prince... after all, there were those 80 personal attacks..."

I don't mean to suggest the Clintons are running exclusively on a McCarthyism playbook. They're also tapping Karl Rove, who in the 2004 election mastered the audacious technique of directly attacking your opponent's strength. Who would have thought that Bush, who hid in the Texas National Air Guard during Vietnam, could have successfully attacked for his service Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran! But Bush did, and succeeding in sowing what's known in the software industry as FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I doubt many voters could remember or ever even knew the details of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (the name itself is a masterpiece of marketing) campaign; what they remembered was something vague, along the lines of, "Sure, Kerry was in Vietnam... but weren't there questions about his war record?"

And so, with Karl Rove as inspiration, the Clintons are now attacking Obama for is supposed inconsistency on the war in Iraq. Bill calls Obama's consistent stance on the war a "fairy tale." Hillary echoes the claim on Tim Russert's show. For the actual facts, though -- to understand just how superior to Hillary's has been Obama's record and judgment on Iraq -- you need print.

So this is how the Clintons hope to neutralize Obama's entirely justifiable claim to have demonstrated better judgment than the current "candidate of experience" on one of the most important foreign policy calls in US history. They use their celebrity status to make all kinds of claims on video that will go un-rebutted in real time, either because the interviewer is ill-informed or timid or an ally or some combination. Only later will the facts emerge, and then only in print. Which will have the bigger impact: the Clinton's ongoing televised repetitions of a lie? Or the print rebuttals? Again, when the smoke clears, even if people remember that Hillary voted for the war in Iraq while then-Illinois state senator Obama was speaking out against it, they'll also have some vague sense that Obama must have done something wrong, too... even if they can't quite remember what it was. "Sure, Hillary was wrong on Iraq... but so was he, wasn't he?"

What did Churchill say? "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Lies are faster, and the Clintons are using them to try to win a race.

What should Obama do about it? My sense is that he should continue to stick to the high road. A significant part of Obama's appeal is his call for an end to partisan rancor. I think his stature will grow if he continues not just to talk that talk, but to walk that walk, especially in the face of so many provocations from the Clintons. Yes, continue to set the record straight, but don't be drawn into the mud. Keep playing to your strengths, keep playing your positive game, not the Clinton's desperately negative one. Not only will such a positive campaign lead to an Obama victory, it'll make that victory even more worthwhile for everyone -- even for the Clintons, because they're American citizens, too, and for any of their would-be imitators.

Update: Another instance of the Clintons' obfuscation efforts regarding Hillary's war vote. Nice to see the New York Times pointing out the distortions.

Brand, Market Adoption, and President Obama

Watching the results from Iowa come in on Thursday, and listening to Obama's victory speech and Hillary Clinton's concession speech after, I realized why Obama is only going to get stronger and Clinton only weaker. It comes down to two business concepts: brand, and market adoption.

Simply put, a brand is the emotional connection a consumer feels to a product or service. It's what the product or service stands for in the consumer's mind. What does Apple stand for? Virgin? Marlboro? Harley Davidson? Generally speaking, if you can easily and simply answer the question of what a company stands for, you're talking about a strong brand. If you can't, the brand is weak.

Part of what makes a brand powerful is internal consistency -- that is, consistency between the elements of the message, and between the message and the underlying product. Inconsistency, that is, dissonance, weakens a brand. In other words, for a brand to have power, its various elements must organically cohere. Volvo stands for safety. How would Volvo fare if the company attempted to include in its brand the idea of speed, handling, and thrills? Not well, because thrills and safety don't easily fit together in the consumer's mind. Reliability, on the other hand, is something that does cohere with safety, and therefore, conceptually, Volvo would have little trouble expanding its brand to make it mean reliability along with safety. But because Volvos are not, in fact, reliable, the extension wouldn't work -- there would be a disconnect between the brand and the underlying product.

Now let's talk candidates. What is Obama's brand? In a word, change. Change is a perfect brand for a young, charismatic, black candidate relatively new to national politics. That is, the brand is perfectly consistent with the product. Not only is there no dissonance; between the man and the message, there is perfect resonance.

Let's stay for a moment with an analysis of the connection between the brand and the product. Then we'll discuss the connection between the brand and the market.

Okay, Clinton: Clinton's brand is, in a word, experience. Certainly not a bad brand to have, generally speaking, but how well-suited in this case is the brand to the product?

I think the answer is: somewhat well-suited. Clinton has been a US senator for seven years, and no one would argue experience like that isn't relevant to the top job. What about her time as First Lady? Brand-wise, I would call that a mixed bag. Some consumers will find it relevant, others less so (the most balanced analysis I've read on the subject, by the way, is by Slate's Michael Kinsley, here). Regardless, compared to a candidate like, say, George Bush Senior, whose 1992 "experience" brand was informed by a previous term as president, eight years as vice president, ambassador to the U.N., Director of Central Intelligence, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Ambassador to China, Clinton's attempt to brand herself as the experienced candidate is relatively unsupported -- certainly not as well supported as Obama's claim to be the candidate of change.

So Clinton's brand is less resonant with the the underlying product than is Obama's, meaning Obama's brand is the more powerful, other things being equal. But other things aren't equal, and experience isn't always the better brand to run on even when the claim to it is strong (note that George Bush Sr. the candidate of experience, was defeated by the young, inexperienced Bill Clinton in 1992). There's also the question of the suitability of "experience" and "change" as brands in the current market. And here, even if Clinton were the very embodiment of experience, she has the wrong brand for 2008.

"Experience" connotes establishment, status quo, the past -- not concepts likely to be favored in a market that has seen five years of catastrophic war in Iraq; the epic incompetence of the response to Katrina; a plummeting dollar; a nine trillion dollar national debt; etc. "Experience" suggests you might be part of the problems people now want fixed. By contrast, all the associations of "change" as embodied by Obama -- freshness, excitement, the new, the future -- suggest the product in question, rather than being part of the problems of the past, will instead be the agent for solving them.

Clinton has realized her "experience" brand is not nearly as well suited for the current market as Obama's "change" brand, and has therefore been attempting to make "change" a part of her brand, as well. You can see the results in her final pre-caucus Iowa television commercial. Note how many times she talks about how she'll be "ready on day one" -- to make "a new beginning." The message (which Bill Clinton has been broadcasting, as well), is that only the candidate with experience can bring about change. Logically, there's nothing wrong with this argument. But brands aren't driven by logic. They're driven by emotion, by unconscious associations, and the implicit question in the mind of voters ("if she's so experienced, why is she only getting around to changing things now?") cannot be satisfactorily answered by logic. In other words, "experience" and "change" are not elements that cohere under a unified, powerful brand. (For a hilarious take on the ultimate in Clinton rebranding, click here.)

(Clinton's refusal to apologize for her vote authorizing the war in Iraq is similar. As a matter of logic, she can argue that she has nothing to apologize for even though if she could do it over she would vote differently because based on what she knew at the time, it was the right decision. The logic of her argument, however, doesn't satisfy the nagging, unconscious, simple question: if you made a mistake, shouldn't you apologize?)

Remember that all the national problems enumerated above arose under the stewardship of a president whose father was president eight years before him. A nepotistic succession -- the antithesis of change -- produced disastrous results. Of course the current market is more hungry for change than it is for experience (and of course the market will be leery of anything that smells of further nepotism or dynasty). Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton = more of the same problems. Barrack Obama? Now that sounds different.

A last point about brands, and then we'll move on to a discussion of market adoption. Remember: for a pitch to be maximally effective, it has to be stated indirectly -- in other words, hidden. With this principle in mind, will Clinton's recent attempts to incorporate "change" into her brand work? "Hillary has always been a change agent" doesn't feel terribly persuasive. By contrast, Obama strikes me as much more subtle about responding to the "no experience" charge. I expect that both substantively and by a firmer grasp of principles of effective communication, Obama will over time put to rest doubts about the depth of his experience. Clinton will have a much more difficult time persuading people that she's not a representative of the status quo -- substantively; because of how directly she makes her claims of change; most stubbornly, because status quo is an inherent association of her brand. Most fundamentally, because at this point in their lives and in this campaign, the candidates' brands are well established, and brands can be changed only slowly, if at all.

Okay, let's talk about market adoption. Quite a few years back, I read an eye-opening book called "Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers" by Geoffrey Moore. Moore's argument is that a new, untested product, which Moore calls "discontinuous," will be taken up by the market in five stages: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Only when a product is being adopted by the late majority and laggards can it be said to have "crossed the chasm" to the mass market (in the book business, this is usually called "breaking out"). The point is, later segments of the market refuse to adopt the new product until they see that earlier segments have adopted it. You can only reach the late adopters, who won't initially trust you, by proving yourself with the early adopters first.

Let's apply this theory to Obama. He's young, fresh, and although in fact possessed of a significant amount of relevant experience, not running primarily on an experience brand. Most importantly for purposes of crossing the chasm, of course, he is black. And just as many technology consumers won't buy a new product until they see other people are buying it already, there are many voters who are reluctant to vote for a black candidate because they don't believe he can win.

The key word is "reluctant." Certainly there are some voters who won't believe a black candidate can actually be president until they have witnessed one with his hand on the bible at a south lawn swearing-in ceremony (and maybe not even then). But all other late adopters can and will have their doubts assuaged by witnessing the candidate's success. The leading curve of these late adopters will have been persuaded of Obama's electability by his resounding victory in Iowa. Others will continue to believe Iowa was a meaningless one-off... until they see him win in New Hampshire. And South Carolina. Etc. The point is, for a new, discontinuous "product" like Obama, the mass market can only be converted by the action of early adopters like the voters in Iowa. What this means is that, more than for any other candidate, every time Obama wins, it makes him dramatically stronger. By the time he wins the Democratic nomination, only lunatic-fringe laggards would still refuse to vote for him on electability grounds, and in any market, lunatic fringe laggards are ultimately irrelevant to a product's success. Which, among other reasons, including his brand, is why I believe Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. Why I hope for that outcome -- and I do -- will be the subject of another post.

P.S. Forgive me for not responding as often as before to comments here. I also post these pieces on my discussion board, and have been spending more time there. It's a fun forum with a lot of interesting people talking about writing, the Rain books, politics, single malt whisky, and anything else that strikes people's fancy, and we do a monthly chat on writing, too, so if you have a chance, stop by and say hello. It would be good to see you.

Liars: Expert and Inexpert

Lately I've been struck by the attempts of Barack Obama's opponents to frighten voters by falsely suggesting Obama is Muslim, and by emerging details of how the CIA went about destroying its torture tapes.* Perhaps unsurprisingly, Obama's opponents' efforts, while disgusting, are calculated to be effective, while the CIA's cover-up, also substantively reprehensible, was woefully inept.

For a pitch to be maximally effective, it has to be stated indirectly -- in other words, hidden. Think about those Cialis ads. They don't directly trumpet, "Cialis will give you a four-hour hard-on!" Instead, they insidiously *warn* customers that in the rare event of a priapism -- an erection that sticks around for over four hours -- you should call your doctor. ("Call my doctor?" a friend of mine commented. "I'm calling everybody!") The customer concludes for himself: if this stuff is capable of causing that kind of tumescence, surely it'll give me at least the boost I need. And is persuaded thereby. The Hollywood variation, by the way, is here.

So it would be crude -- and ineffective -- for Obama's opponents to come right out and claim, "Be afraid -- this guy is a closet Muslim!" Instead, they know to obscure the real message inside an ostensible one. That's why former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey couched his "Obama is a Muslim" message in the guise of praise: "I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal." Nice! Were any fence sitters persuaded by this? "Hmmm, I hadn't thought about the benefits of Obama's remote Muslim connections." Or is it more likely that people who weren't aware of of any of this concluded, "What? This guy's middle name is *Hussein*? Holy fifth columnist, Batman!" With a master's flourish, Kerrey followed up with an apology, which kept his original words and their insidious meaning in the news cycle. Which is exactly what Kerrey knew would happen, and exactly what he intended.

When Clinton aides forwarded hoax emails similarly preying on the Muslim theme, they said they were doing so just to show how dirty politics was getting. Ah, chutzpah. And when the Clinton campaign fired the offending aides, the firings were designed both to disassociate Senator Clinton from the sleaze and to keep the "Obama is a Muslim" meme in the news cycle.

Top honors for effective use of this type of rhetorical head fake go to Daniel Pipes, who expressed his confidence this way: "'If I were a Muslim I would let you know,' Barack Obama has said, and I believe him... He is not now a Muslim."

Is a suspicious voter reassured by Pipes' confidence? Or does the voter say, "Wait a minute, not *now* a Muslim? You mean he *used to* be one?" Which is exactly what Pipe wanted.

Maybe all the discussion about Obama being Muslim is an honest accident. But to believe that, you'd have to believe that all the people engaging in it, including former and sitting Senators, who know a thing or two about public relations, know less about it than I do. And I'm no expert.

Well, at least when it comes to effective deceit, we should be able to count on the CIA, right? After all, deceit is the name of the intelligence game. If you're in the business of deniably toppling third world dictators and the like, surely you could invent an effective cover for destroying a few internal tapes. Heck, "cover for action" is one of the most fundamental elements of tradecraft, taught to every spy who's ever graduated from the Farm.

Uh, no. Read this New York Times account of how the CIA came to and carried out the decision to destroy the Abu Zubaydah torture tapes (and note how hard the NYT tries not to use the word "torture," preferring terms like "coercive interrogation"). The Agency's efforts were so inept that even though Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel; David S. Addington, legal adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney; and John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council all met with Agency officials to discuss the tapes, no one at the Agency seems able to use the White House's involvement (and possible direction) for political cover. When it comes to cover-ups, it seems, intelligence personnel are no match for politicians.

I can't help wondering, at a purely tactical level, why the Agency didn't just implement some new general regulation regarding, say, the "orderly disposal" (better an oblique nominal construction than a direct verb like "destroy") of "records no longer current," something like that. Get the White House to sign off on the bland new directive. Allow a decent interval to elapse. Dispose of some innocuous records, then the incriminating tapes, then some additional items. Then, when the whole thing comes to light, put on your most innocent and perplexed face and say, "Destroy the tapes? Let me check... oh, they were just subject to orderly disposal pursuant to regulation number whatever, along with hundreds of other items. It was just routine. And anyway, the White House signed off on the whole thing." Conceal the murder in a massacre... how hard is that? Apparently, too hard for the CIA.

Well, at least the Agency isn't totally oblivious to public relations issues... according to the article, the CIA no longer calls its interrogators "interrogators," preferring to call them "debriefers," instead.

Happy new year.

*Sorry, make that "enhanced interrogation," for as President Bush has assured us, "This government does not torture people." Although, given that Vice President Cheney has similarly assured us that the office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch, I can't help but wonder what the president means when he says "this government," and even what he means by "people." It's enough to make you miss what the meaning of is is.

P.S. Forgive me for not responding as often as before to comments here. I also post these pieces on my discussion board, and have been spending more time there. It's a fun forum with a lot of interesting people talking about writing, the Rain books, politics, single malt whisky, and anything else that strikes people's fancy, and we do a monthly chat on writing, too, so if you have a chance, stop by and say hello. It would be good to see you.

Vince Flynn, Left-Winger?

The Friday Washington Times has an interesting interview with Vince Flynn, whose new novel featuring CIA operator Mitch Rapp just hit #1 on the NYT list.

I've met Vince and like him, and enjoy Mitch Rapp, too, but I have to admit that while reading the interview, I was struck by some of the fallacies in Vince's arguments, including an underlying set of assumptions that used to be associated with left-wing thinking, but that have now been adopted by the right.

[Torture is] far more effective than liberals would have you believe... What do you think we should have done? Given them [terrorists] a lawyer, three square meals a day and let planes get hijacked?

Leaving aside for the moment the question of effectiveness, note the either/or thinking by which Vince reaches his conclusion. Either we torture, or planes get hijacked. Is this true? Do we really have no anti-terror tools at our disposal but torture? If it is true, how did we get to the point where our options are so dire -- and so limited?

The binary assumption is common in modern rightist arguments. Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists. Either we stay the course in Iraq or we cut and run. Either we bomb Iran or accept their mideast hegemony. In a certain worldview, there are never more than two possibilities.

When I worked for the government, I was taught to make policy proposals in threes: two crazy, one merely unpalatable. For example, we can either nuke Iran, convert to Islam, or tighten up sanctions. The idea is to rhetorically limit the possibilities so the policy maker believes he has no choice. It's like a magician forcing a card.

The question, then, is why do intelligent people present their arguments in such a deliberately distorted fashion? My only answer is that, like the person recommending policy choices above, they do so because they want to reach a certain conclusion, in this case that torture is desirable. The emotional urge is understandable -- we took a hard hit on 9/11 and it's natural that we want to lash out in response. But if we want our policies to be effective, don't they need to be driven more by logic and rational thinking than emotional urges? And when did the right become the slave of naked emotion?

I think it [torture] should be done in the rarest of situations. Anybody who says torture doesn't work hasn't studied the history of torture.

I can't be sure, never having been tortured and never having tortured anyone, but I don't know anyone reasonable who argues that torture doesn't ever work. The problem here is again a kind of limited focus, because whether something sometimes works is only a small part of analyzing whether the thing in question is desirable overall. Maybe a drug works sometimes, but that's no argument for failing to consider its side effects -- or those occasions where the drug catastrophically fails.

I'll stipulate that in certain instances, you could get useful intel via torture. We still have to balance that possible benefit against all the real costs: an avalanche of false information obscuring the real intel; the creation of new, highly motivated terrorist cadres; tremendous damage to US soft power; psychic damage to our own people; the brutalization of our culture.

You could argue that the benefits of torture outweigh those costs. What you can't do is argue in favor of torture as though those costs don't exist.

The tendency to argue because of possible benefits while ignoring real costs has become a right wing emblem. When the subject is Iraq, the right's arguments are limited to the benefits of having overthrown a brutal dictator. Omitted from the analysis is a discussion of what we have paid to achieve that end: over 4000 dead servicemen and women and far more maimed, blinded, and traumatized; over half a trillion dollars so far, and possibly more than double that in years to come; massive military and economic opportunity costs; etc.

Here is a simple equation: value = benefit minus cost. It used to be liberals who argued for the value of an enterprise only by reference to its benefits, and conservatives who insisted also on an accounting of cost. No longer.

Torture, or aggressive interrogation, is only as good as the interrogators. Take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance. He got waterboarded and he sang like a canary... he ended up naming operatives and giving up a treasure trove of financial secrets as well as plans for future attacks.

Another thing I learned in the government was that an assessment of the soundness of intelligence has to include an understanding of the motivations of the asset providing it. When the same government sources advocating torture assure me it works, it brings out my inner skeptic (again, odd that cynicism used to be a right wing characteristic, naivete a hallmark of the left). I've also learned, from George Orwell and personal experience, to be skeptical when assurances take the form of cliches like "sang like a canary." Cliches are typically substitutes for thought.

But maybe KSM did provide useful intel after being tortured. We still have to measure the value of what was obtained in that individual instance against the costs of torture overall. True, Vince argues that torture "should be done in the rarest of situations." But as Abu Ghraib has demonstrated, torture, once accepted "in the rarest of situations," has a tendency to metastasize, and anyone who argues that torture should be, say, safe legal and rare, has to include metastasis as one of the potential costs to consider.

[KSM being waterboarded] was not Uday and Qusai Hussein at work. This was done with clinical precision, not brute force. There are multiple interrogators, lie detectors, doctors and a group of analysts in the next room...

This one throws me. Is the argument that medieval, Inquisition torture is bad, but modern, scientific torture is good? I can't imagine Vince would want to articulate such a principle, but that seems to be what he's saying.

I know Amnesty International would disagree with me, but every American needs to ask themselves, "If you could turn back the clock one week [before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks] would you want Zacarias Moussaoui to have been interrogated by waterboarding?"

I've heard this kind of argument before. It's a subspecies of the "we only have two choices" approach -- again, waterboard or face another 9/11. But the subspecies has an interesting twist: note that it is by definition a fantasy. You actually have to go back in time, where you can have knowledge of the future, to make it work. Unless the people who promote this argument propose building a time machine, I don't understand its relevance. We can't travel backward in time. We don't have knowledge delivered from the future. It's the here and now in which the benefits and costs of torture need to be discussed.

[Americans] are not opposed to torturing men like Sheikh Mohammed, but they don't want to run around and talk about it in public.

This is a strangely emotional argument -- strange because, again, emotional appeals used to be a hallmark of the left, critical thinking the pride of the right. Of course anyone who lived through 9/11 would like KSM, OBL, and many others to suffer and die horribly. That's natural -- as natural as feeling the same way about rapists and murderers. But we've made a decision as a society to grant due process to rapists and murderers, which means not torturing them however much we'd like to. If you want to argue for torturing rapists and murderers, you have to argue that the benefits of the torture outweigh the costs of abandoning Constitutional due process. Similarly, if you want to argue that we should torture War on Terror prisoners, you have to argue the benefits will outweigh the costs. Either way, the existence of a righteous urge to do violence is not an argument for the rightness of violence. "If it feels good, do it" is a formerly left-wing mantra, now heartily embraced by the right.

Look at Hollywood. They all detest President Bush because their friends will think they are smarter by hating him. They wear it as a badge of honor . They try to prove to people they are smart and compassionate and enlightened, so people will like them.

Coming from a novelist capable of imagining the kinds of twists and turns that bedevil Mitch Rapp, the "there are no reasons someone could detest President Bush except for some internal psychological drama or the impoverishment of a certain social milieu" argument seems doubly odd, and I'm struck again by the self-imposed limitations of the current view from the right.

Americans would love to watch a great movie where Mitch Rapp is meting out punishment to these crazy zealots...

Agreed! And I would probably be first in line. But the kind of emotional gratification that drives great movie making shouldn't be confused with the fundamentals of effective policy making. Story is built on emotion and drama. Policy is built on logic and facts.

Mitch Rapp has taken on a cult following, but Hollywood doesn't get it for the same reasons they don't understand talk radio, Wal-Mart or NASCAR.

I don't know... if Hollywood could greenlight "Saw IV" (I love the roman numeral; it makes it seem so important), I think they could stoop to talk radio level just fine.

[I'm backing] Rudy [Giuliani]. He's a bit of a moderate and can unite the country and get the country focused on the war against terrorists.

Hmmm... Giuliani is endorsed by Pat Robertson, who claimed American homosexuals brought 9/11 down upon us; his chief foreign policy adviser believes we're already in World War IV and "prays" the US will bomb Iran; he has promised to appoint judges like Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas; and he has argued that we are in a "real war" with Iran and should not rule out a preemptive nuclear strike on Tehran.

If Giuliani is a moderate, who's an extremist?

[Giuliani] symbolizes the gravity of the situation, and I don't think the guy will back off for a moment having witnessed September 11.

When did the right become so dazzled by symbols that a candidate's symbolic value became a reason to offer him your vote?

I don't think Guiliani will waiver. If he gets ahold of Osama bin Laden, he will throw everything he can at the guy.

Everything? Is that a good thing?

Unwavering symbols throwing everything we have at the enemy... it's an emotional image, I'll admit. But where's the rational beef? When did the right's thinking become so... touchy-feely?

Obviously, I don't agree with Vince, but I give him credit for not resorting to euphemisms like enhanced or aggressive or alternative interrogation. I just hope that he, and other torture proponents, will better distinguish between the cost-free, satisfying torture we see in novels and movies, and torture in the real world, where it carries real costs. That's the kind of hard-headed distinction we used to be able to count on from the right. I eagerly await its return.

The Future of the Book Biz

Sorry for the radio silence -- the new manuscript is due in January and for the moment it's hard to keep up with HOTM. If you're curious, I do have a three-part series on the future of the book biz at M.J. Rose's Buzz, Balls & Hype. Enjoy and see you soon.

-- Barry

More on Torture

The subject of torture is much in the news again: the New York Times reports on a series of secret Justice Department opinions; The Economist runs a weekly article on the balance of security and civil liberties; Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal responds to The Economist; and former President Carter unequivocally claims the US tortures prisoners (no "detainees are subjected to enhanced/alternative/aggressive/harsh interrogation techniques" passive voice doublespeak for Carter).

Let's see if we can get to the heart of the matter.

Bret Stephens devoted a fair amount of his column's space to trying to define torture, discussing needles under fingernails, blows to the head, stress positions, hooding, subjection to noise, sleep deprivation, and deprivation of food and water, plus combinations thereof.

(BTW, most of the commentary on blows to the head during interrogation describes the blows as "slaps." My sense is that the word slap is chosen deliberately because slaps seem relatively insignificant (see also Vice President Cheney describing waterboarding as "a dunking"). I respectfully submit that anyone who argues a slap is no big deal either is being disingenuous, or has never been slapped by someone who knows what he's doing.)

I've argued before that opinions about what constitutes torture will never be entirely objective. Maybe the way to avoid, or at least ameliorate the subjectivity inherent in the topic is to avoid trying to define the practice altogether. I think focusing too much on a definition won't, in the end, be any more productive than attempts to define terrorism. I also think the focus on a definition is misleading. A better focus would emerge if we try to answer the following question:

How do we reasonably expect American prisoners of war to be treated by the enemy? Whatever the answer, that's the way we ought to be treating enemy POWs.

Why? Two reasons. First is the classic one: we want to encourage the enemy to reciprocate. Second, the more fundamental one: how we treat enemies is a critical part of how we view ourselves.

The reciprocity argument is marginal when the enemy is al Qaeda. Still, it's worth noting that there must be reasons beyond reciprocity that we don't want to torture prisoners. Otherwise, presumably we would be comfortable beheading captured jihadists and videotaping the beheadings, too, simply because that's what the other side does. Which is another way of saying that no matter what the other side does, there is a code of behavior we will abide by purely because of who we are. And I can't think of any better way to arrive at that code than by reference to the treatment we reasonably expect to be extended to American POWs. Anything else would be hypocritical at best.

If you agree with me, you'll have a hard time countenancing blows to the head, stress positions, hypothermia, and all the rest -- unless you think it's okay for American POWs to be treated this way, too.

But torture saves lives, proponents say. And that's what counts.

Well, it's not the only thing that counts, is it? If saving lives is the only value at stake, what meaning is there is phrases like "live free or die," "give me liberty or give me death," and "death before dishonor"?

Regardless, I'm not convinced of the benefits of torture -- and even if I were, I'd also want to inquire into its costs. By way of analogy: in our criminal justice system, we incarcerate people only upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's an exceptionally high standard, and without question permits countless criminals to go free -- many of them, doubtless, to commit other crimes, including murder. If we relaxed the standard, we would put more murderers behind bars, and in doing so we would certainly save lives. But we don't -- apparently because we recognize that the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt has inherent value, even at the cost of lives.

If you wanted to relax the burden of proof in criminal law, you'd have to argue that whatever benefits we derive from the standard as a society are outweighed by the crimes committed by criminals who the standard keeps out of prison. Similarly, if you think Americans should treat prisoners other than the way we expect American POWs to be treated, you'd have to argue that the benefits of such a course would exceed the cost of our hypocrisy. Whether or not what they call for amounts to "torture," I don't think proponents have adequately made this case.

Getting Closer to War with Iran

I've written before about the chances for war between the US and Iran. Seymour Hersh lays out the latest in the October 8 New Yorker.

Consider a few items. First, the January 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which provides in part:

Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States...

Next, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, passed on September 27, which designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization.

Third, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have both testified that Iran is arming Iraqis against the United States (President Bush has made similar points, of course, but his credibility on such matters isn't high, which is why the White House has gone to such lengths to build up and rely upon the credibility of General Petraeus).

Add it all up, and you can see what's coming. The White House, claiming inherent authority under the Constitution, plus statutory authority pursuant to the Jan 2002 AUMF and Kyl-Lieberman, launches limited air strikes inside Iran against what it claims are terrorist targets. Iran hits back. America's blood gets up, and the White House now has the political capital to widen its campaign against Iran. Congressional Democrats, already caving in to Republican pressure on such nonsense as a bill suggesting that every single member of the US armed forces is possessed of unassailable honor and integrity and on Kyl-Lieberman itself, do nothing -- or perhaps pass a few new enabling resolutions. The situation worsens in Iraq, and the White House expands its rhetorical campaign against Iran, arguing that success in Iran has become the key to success in Iraq (and perhaps in Afghanistan, as well). The worse things become overall, the more important it becomes to escalate (sound familiar, albeit strange? It's the history of the political-military dynamic in Iraq). The war with Iran, ostensibly initiated to protect our troops in Iraq, is now about the destruction of Iran's nuclear program. Because Iran really has such a program, the ostensible purpose of the war with Iraq -- WMDs -- is, in a byzantine way, fulfilled.

How can you tell the war is going to happen? First, ask who wants it to happen. Then ask who could stop it.

Who wants it to happen? President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as described here.

Who could stop it? Congressional Democrats? Based on their supine record since taking both Congress and the Senate, I think not.

Congressional Republicans? Maybe, because they have the most to lose, electorally speaking. But do they? The Republicans are already going to be hammered in '08... so why not play double or nothing, shake up the state of play and see what happens? When you look at it this way, you realize that Congressional Republicans might look at gambling on another war as worth a roll of the dice.

Who's left? Possibly the US military itself, strangely enough. But by starting small and claiming strikes inside Iran are only in support of US forces in Iraq, the White House could bypass and ultimately co-opt military objections, too.

It's hard to imagine a war with Iran will go well, given the Bush administration's demonstrated incompetence in waging the two currently on its plate. If things go badly, I wonder what sort of societal backlash we'll see domestically. Supporters of the White House, the war in Iraq, and a new war in Iran will need to find a reason for our failures. What will they seize on?

Get ready.

Andrew's Microphone

Although I was fascinated by the YouTube videos of police at the University of Florida tasering student Andrew Meyer, I wasn't going to blog about it because it was so obvious to me that the police had behaved correctly. But over the weekend, I spoke with a friend who surprised me with a different (and, in my opinion, mistaken) view. So maybe it's worth pointing out a few things about what happened to Meyer.

There are two discreet issues here: first, did Meyer have a right to do what he was doing at the microphone? Second, even if he had such a right -- that is, even if the police were wrong in asking him to leave -- did the police behave wrongly when they tased him?

To argue that Meyer had a right to behave as he did at the microphone requires an adherence to a notion of free speech that would destroy free speech in fact. Watch the video. His tone aggressively sanctimonious, Meyer makes an incoherent speech, and finally, in response to repeated requests that he ask a question, fires a few off without pausing to let Kerry answer. After Meyer had been at it for over a minute and a half, someone cuts the power to the mic. Meyer's response is revealing: "Thanks for cutting my mic."

Not "the" mic... "my" mic. If you hadn't already figured out from his tone and behavior that Meyer is an immature, narcissistic grandstander who doesn't give a damn about anyone's rights but his own, his diction just then provides an important clue.

(You can catch another important clue here, where Andrew's narcissism has blossomed so fully that he believes the police are going to lead him away to murder him. This behavior strikes me as being about on a par with that of delusionals who believe they're Napoleon or Jesus Christ).

Watching the video, it was plain to me that Meyer wasn't interested in an exchange of ideas, or in eliciting information, or in any way engaging anyone else in the room. It was a performance. It wasn't about Kerry and it certainly wasn't about the people in the audience, several of whom you can see getting up to leave the moment Meyer starts acting up. It was all about Andrew. Andrew wasn't speaking; he was performing.

Now a performance, even one as self-indulgent as Andrew's, can be protected speech. But at what cost? Within what parameters? How long should Andrew have been permitted to go exercise his right? He'd been given over a minute and half already. What if he'd wanted to go on for two? Five minutes? Ten? Is the determination of what he's going to say, and how long he'll take to say it, entirely up to him? Or should the moderators have some say, as well?

Unless you think how long a speaker should be permitted to prattle on is entirely up to the speaker, you have to acknowledge that at some point the moderators or other authority figures have the right to shut the speaker down. If there are no rules -- and no one to enforce them -- it's hard to see how free speech could get exercised amidst all the discordant shouting.

But even if you believe Meyer's right to perform was absolute and that no one had the right to shut him down, or if you just believe they shut him down too early or otherwise inappropriately, we're still left with that second question: did the police behave wrongly when they tased him?

Here's a quick -- and wildly inaccurate -- sound bite: "The police tased Meyer just for asking questions!"

No. The police tased Meyer for resisting arrest. Watch the sequence: there were about a dozen steps of escalating confrontation between Meyer's "questions" and the police tasing him:

1. Meyer is urged to ask a question. He ignores the request.
2. The mic is cut and the police take Meyers by the elbows, telling him, "come on outside."
3. Meyer dodges away, saying, "I'm not going anywhere! Get off me! What the fuck are you doing!"
4. The police start pushing Meyer toward the exits.
5. Meyer breaks away, continuing to shout.
6. The police grab him again, and they fall to the ground.
7. The police direct Meyer to turn over on his stomach.
8. Meyer refuses.
9. The police get him over on his stomach and try to cuff him.
10. Meyer resists.
11. The police tell Meyer repeatedly to put his hands behind his back.
12. Meyer refuses, saying instead that if they let him up, he will walk out on his own.
13. The police repeatedly warn Meyer that if he doesn't put his hands behind his back, they will tase him.
14. Meyer repeatedly refuses and continues to resist.
15. Meyer is tased.

At every one of these steps, the police gave Meyer a choice. Every time he had a choice, Meyer chose to escalate rather than comply.

(BTW, important safety tip: when the police give instructions, it's not a negotiation. Once you choose escalation, you can't negotiate down to a lower level of confrontation, as Meyer tried to do at #12.)

So here's the correct sound bite: "The police tased Meyer for violently resisting arrest."

Or, if you want a sound bite that ties the police response directly to Meyer's microphone behavior, you could say, "The police told Meyer to leave just for asking questions!" But that doesn't quite get people rushing to the barricades, does it.

When the police give someone clear verbal instructions and the person refuses, what should the cops to do at that point? Apologize and walk away? Or should they escalate: a request becomes a command, the command is accompanied by taking the person by the elbow, the elbow becomes the torso, etc. A lot of people don't like the taser. What do they suggest as an alternative -- a billy club?

Well, there were at least six cops... maybe they should have just forced Meyer's arms behind his back rather than tasing him. Leave aside for the moment that they were trying but apparently couldn't. Instead ask, what would people say when, say, Meyer's shoulder was dislocated in the struggle, or he was otherwise injured by the force he made the cops use? Police brutality, is my guess.

Bottom line: take out all the hot button free speech arguments, and imagine instead that Meyer had been trying to use a lavatory when the cops told him, without explanation, that he would have to find a different one. Imagine too that the cops had no right to order him out of this particular restroom. Is Meyer right at that point if he fights the cops? And what should the cops do if he does?

If you think the police are abridging your rights, you can send a complaint to the university ombudsman. Or write an op-ed in the school newspaper. Or organize a protest march. Or sue the police department. Any or all of the above would be fine -- but no, you don't get to fight with the police. And if someone does fight them, I hope the cops would respond as sensibly and professionally as the ones who had to deal with Meyer did.

Enduring Success

In reading the transcript of President Bush's Thursday evening address to the nation, I was struck by the absence of one word, and the presence of another.

The missing word, of course, was "victory." There were ten variations of "success," but no mention of victory.

I wasn't surprised by victory's absence, because if there really were any prospect for victory in Iraq, I think it's safe to say the war's architects would have linguistically seized it. But not even a fervent propagandist can deny that the original objectives for victory in the war, both ostensible and ulterior, are no longer achievable. There never were any weapons of mass destruction, or, if they were, they now reside in Syria or elsewhere. The notion of "a free, democratic and independent Iraq that stands... as a beacon of freedom and justice" is a sad joke. Rather than the shock and awe we had hoped to instill in Iran and Syria by virtue of our victorious military machine on their borders, our troops are stuck in a quagmire, and indeed exposed to Syrian and Iranian "meddling" within Iraq.

The current ostensible objective of the war, according to the president's speech, is "the success of a free Iraq." The president claimed several benefits that would flow from free Iraq's success: "A free Iraq will deny al Qaeda a safe haven. A free Iraq will counter the destructive ambitions of Iran. A free Iraq will marginalize extremists, unleash the talent of its people and be an anchor of stability in the region. A free Iraq will set an example for people across the Middle East. A free Iraq will be our partner in the fight against terror, and that will make us safer here at home."

Note that these are all positive developments that could possibly occur, to some degree, at some unspecified point in the future.

Now note the negative events the president claims will occur if "we were to be driven out of Iraq:"

"extremists of all strains would be emboldened. Al Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply. Iraq could face a humanitarian nightmare. Democracy movements would be violently reversed. We would leave our children to face a far more dangerous world. And as we saw on September the 11th, 2001, those dangers can reach our cities and kill our people. "

What's interesting is what follows logically: according to the president, all these negative outcomes can be prevented -- if we just stay in Iraq. Because no matter how badly the war is going, no matter our casualties, no matter the financial cost and the strain on the military and the opportunity costs, too, as long as we're never driven out, the negative events will never happen, and the positive ones always just might.

And here's where that second interesting word comes into play: "enduring."

Here's how the president used it:

"This vision for a reduced American presence also has the support of Iraqi leaders from all communities. At the same time, they understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops. "

Not "long-lasting," not "long-term," not "ongoing" or "permanent" or "committed" or any other possible substitute you can think of. "Enduring." And then it occurred to me: this is the final definition of "success" the war's architects are peddling. Endurance. As long as we endure in Iraq, we cannot be defeated there. And while as a great power you can't claim the absence of defeat will ever equal victory, you might convince yourself that it is a form of success.

It seems to me that those who continue to support our current course in Iraq picture us as a boxer. We entered the ring confident of a quick knockout (one that would intimidate other possible opponents), and found ourselves instead taking a terrible pasting. We couldn't knock the other guy out quickly, and have grudgingly come to accept that we won't be able to knock him out ever. But we're not going to throw in the towel, either. We'll just keep slugging it out, and merely enduring in this unexpectedly ferocious fight becomes our new objective.

The analogy breaks down because the costs of the war -- blood, treasure, and opportunity costs -- are by comparison so galactic. Still, I think it works to describe a certain mentality that keeps the war going. As long as we don't leave, we haven't been beaten. And over time, merely not being beaten -- "enduring" -- becomes its own form, if not of victory, then at least of success.

Of course, if things ever do stabilize in Iraq, we'll bleed there less. We might even be able to sustain the stabilization with fewer troops. But "success," although it doesn't preclude such an outcome, doesn't require, it either. Success merely requires that we never leave.

And so, ultimately, the very fact that we're still in Iraq means that we've succeeded there. The war's strategists and supporters wouldn't phrase it this way, of course, but I suspect it's how they feel.

P.S. If you're a regular reader of my blog, I hope you'll consider becoming one of my MySpace friends, too. And if you have a chance, stop by my discussion forum, where the talk on politics, single malt whisky, writing, and self-defense goes on and on...

Bottoms Up

All the way back in April 2006, I wrote:

"As a society, we're probably not ready to accept that a three state solution is now the best outcome we can hope to retrieve in Iraq. But the good news, if you want to call it that, is that three states is where Iraq is heading whether we like it or not. We can always get behind it later. But the effort would be easier, more plausible, and probably less bloody if we did so now."

I've seen nothing since to persuade me that Iraq is heading anywhere other than into three separate states. The only thing that's changed is that the Bush administration now seems to have accepted the inevitable three-state outcome. Rather than calling it a "soft partition," though, as Democrat Joe Biden prefers, the favored Republican moniker is "bottom-up approach." Google the phrase and you'll see: BUA is the new Surge.

BUA refers to the strategy of bypassing Baghdad and cutting deals with warlords -- sorry, make that "tribal leaders." Today, the Bush administration describes BUA as a way to put Iraq back together, but the rhetoric is as much a figleaf as the BUA moniker itself. Logically, arming, supplying, and otherwise cementing the power and patronage of warlords will calcify Iraq's de facto division, not reverse it.

Which is a good thing, by the way. As I've argued before, Iraq is breaking up anyway. It's hard to see how fighting the inevitable will lessen the pain.

A few predictions:

As ethnic cleansing continues in Baghdad's mixed neighborhoods, we'll see a lower incidence of sectarian killings. The Bush administration will credit the Surge and the BUA with the ease in sectarian violence, rather than acknowledging that the ease is largely the result of a successful campaign of ethnic cleansing. Indeed, General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker's testimony to Congress this week is part of a campaign intended to conflate correlation (by certain measures, sectarian violence is down; there's also a Surge and a BUA) with causality (violence is down *because* of the Surge and the BUA).

Speaking of the general and the ambassador, after hearing their report, you might be tempted to ask: What was the big deal? "We're making progress, it's a tough fight, we need to reassess in March '08." Did anyone expect Patraeus and Crocker to say anything else?

Of course not. But remember, beyond obfuscation, the purpose of this report wasn't substantive; it was to create another milestone to eat up time. How many times in the last six months did President Bush avoid a question about Iraq by responding, "Let's just see what General Patraeus has to say in September..."

Well, now we know (as though we didn't know then). General Patraeus would like to get back to us in... six months. Any guesses about what his report will consist of then?

(It all reminds me of that child's prank, the sheet of paper that says on the front, "How do you keep an idiot occupied? Turn over." With an identical message on the back.)

The question to ask at this point is: how and to what extent can a continued US presence ease Iraq's division into three. I hope that despite the posturing, the ego protection, and the obfuscation, at least some of our policymakers and military leadership are asking it. A lot of lives hang in the balance.

A New Contest

Hi everyone, sorry I've been out of touch for a while... the tour is just all consuming. 174 bookstores and I'm not even two weeks in! There's so much good stuff in the news, it kills me not to write about it... but I barely have time to read it, let alone to blog. Another two weeks or so to go, and then I'll get to indulge my addiction to politics, language, and miscellaneous again...

Requiem just received a terrific review on a terrific website -- Cinematic Happenings Under Development. In conjunction with the review, the reviewer, Cameron Hughes, is running a contest, with a personally inscribed copy of Requiem as the prize. Check it out here on CHUD, and good luck!

Off to Denver tomorrow -- hope to see you on the road.

:-)
Barry

John Rain a New York Times Bestseller!

Hi everyone, just had to let you know that John Rain is officially a New York Times bestseller! Requiem for an Assassin debuted at #19; not bad for a first-timer to the illustrious list. Thanks for helping me make it happen! It'll be interesting to see whether the book moves up next week... speaking of which, if you haven't picked up a copy yet, now would be a propitious moment to do so...

The tour is going well, but isn't leaving me much time for email or blogging. The place to find me these days is on my new discussion board. It's only been up for a month or so, but is already full of interesting people from around the world talking politics, whisky, and of course John Rain. If you have a chance, stop by and say hello. And thanks again for all your support!

Cheers,
Barry

Get Ready for Requiem!

Hi everyone, well, tomorrow's the big day: Requiem for an Assassin will officially be available in bookstores. My first appearance is at Kepler's in Menlo Park, California, and I'll be on the road for a month after that. If you're around one of the cities on the tour calendar, come on by! It would be good to meet you in person.

And if you'd like a peek at the, uh, naughty bits of the new book, Lustbites has just posted an excerpt and an amusing interview. Enjoy.

With the tour about to start, I'm probably going to miss a few weeks of blogging. But you can find me on my website discussion board. It's a fun forum with a lot of interesting people talking about these blog posts, the Rain books, politics, single malt whisky, and anything else that strikes people's fancy, so if you have a chance, why don't you stop by and say hello? It would be good to see you there.

Thanks for all your support and I hope you enjoy the new book!

Cheers,
Barry

Thoughts on Guns, Part 2

The response to my previous blog post, Thoughts on Guns, was the largest I've ever received. It was also so interesting and thought-provoking that it led to this follow-up.

The responses I received tend to confirm my suspicion that a lot of the acrimony of the debate over guns derives from the fact that the two sides are driven by different, and possibly antagonistic, values: gun ownership proponents (GOPs) are driven primarily by the imperative of individual rights; gun control proponents (GCPs) are driven primarily by the imperative of collective security. Of course, each side claims that its means will lead to the other side's end: GOPs argue that with more individuals carrying, criminals will be deterred, lessening crime overall; GCPs argue that gun control will lessen violence, thereby reducing the need for individuals to carry. The fact that each side can draw on its own statistics, case studies, and anecdotes to back up its claim only strengthens my suspicion that the debate derives more from some emotional bedrock than it does from logical topsoil. Because the two sides in effect speak different languages, they don't understand each other. Because they don't understand each other, they project and demonize: GOPs are fanatics, maniacs, and lovers of violence; GCPs are grass eaters, sheep, and surrender monkeys. And of course each side suspects the other of a maximalist agenda: GCPs seek the abolition of all guns; GOPs want any kind of weaponry to be available to anybody, anytime, anywhere.

Here's a question that might help you figure out where you're biases are. Would you rather live in a society where no one carried outside of law enforcement, or in a society where anyone could carry anything anywhere? Leave aside for a moment the Second Amendment and the practicalities; we'll get to all that. This is just a thought experiment to reveal bias.

While you're thinking, here's a parenthetical to chew on: This thought experiment was what the example of Japan was intended to illustrate in my previous post. I got a lot of mail about that example, most of it arguing for a single cause of Japan's remarkably low crime rates: Draconian gun control; the fact that Japanese think of themselves as subjects rather than citizens (whatever that means); the fact that Japan is a "police state" (if that's so, I don't know what to call North Korea and Syria... but never mind); the fact that Japanese society is inherently less violent than America's. Most of the people advancing these single cause arguments have never lived in Japan; some, I suspect, have never met a Japanese. And coincidentally, each of these single attributed causes had the effect of bolstering whatever argument the person wanted to make...

As my friend The Slugg, who has honored HOTM with the occasional insightful guest column, was taught in military intelligence: first, tell me what you know. Then, tell me what you don't know. And only then, tell me what you think. Good advice for all of us, especially with a debate as contentious as this one. And regardless of what conclusion you consciously or unconsciously hope to reach, ask yourself this: is a phenomenon as complex as crime and violence likely to be attributable to a single cause?

Okay, back to the thought experiment. My bias: I'd rather live in that gun-free world. Personal carry is a huge responsibility and a significant pain-in-the ass. If I could modify the cost/benefit equation enough to feel comfortable avoiding the responsibility and the pain-in-the-assedness, I'd be delighted. I would still use situational awareness as my first, and most cost-effective, line of defense, and I'd still want to carry a knife in case the first and other lines of defense failed me. But if I knew no one else -- that is, no psychotic or criminal -- could be carrying, I wouldn't want to carry, either.

Does that make sense? I doubt everyone will agree with it. Some people would still want to carry to protect against threats other than those that included firearms. Some people would think it's crazy to want to carry even a knife. Some people, not understanding the difference, will confuse the awareness I mentioned with paranoia.

Some of the email I received expressed anger and disgust that I would give up my right and ability to defend myself if the threat were lower. To which I respond, aren't you doing the same thing? Is your house perimeter secured with claymores, razor wire and tank traps? If so, why not? Is it perhaps because you are implicitly balancing the threat with your countermeasures?

As I put myself through this thought experiment, I realized that the exercise was a lot like what I do when trying to calculate the proper level of life insurance to carry. What are the chances that I might die? How much will my family need to live on if I do? How much is it worth paying every year to provide for these possibilities and ensure my peace of mind? I went through a similar process with regard to homeowner's insurance, and came up with policies that made sense for me and my family. Doubtless, different people will decide on different policies, depending on their circumstances and their fears. But this is exactly the kind of calculus that goes on in the mind of anyone who's trying to decide whether to carry a gun: how much do I need it (what is the threat, how likely am I to encounter it)? How much will it cost (the weapon itself, training with it, securing it, carrying it, being responsible for it)? You don't have to be a maniac to ask these questions. You only have to be prudent. And, as with insurance policies, different people will come to different conclusions about their own needs.

I hope that if you're a GCP, my insurance analogy helps you understand the thinking processes of GOPs. Again, you might disagree with their conclusions, but once you know where they're coming from, they might seem a little less threatening. And if you're a GOP, I hope the analogy will help you understand the outlook of GCPs. Based on their environment and other factors involved in a cost/benefit calculus, they might rationally conclude that they're better off not carrying or even owning a gun.

And remember, my thought experiment is intended only to illuminate biases and to get people comfortable with the notion that there's an implicit balancing act in such matters. Remember, actually creating a gun-free zone in a country as big and open as America seems like a hell of a challenge to me. If you're a GCP longing for a gun-free world, ask yourself why our efforts at gun prohibition are likely to be more successful than were our efforts at alcohol prohibition, or our current efforts at drug prohibition, or our efforts to keep out illegal aliens. For all the reasons I argued in my previous post, I don't think guns should be easy to get. But if you make them too hard to get, is it possible you'll be keeping them out of the hands of people who could capably use them to defend themselves and others, as an armed citizen might have done at Virginia Tech, which was, after all, a theoretically gun-free zone?

Now let's talk for a moment about the Second Amendment, much cited in the responses to my previous post. The Second Amendment reads:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

I have to say, I don't understand why so many GOPs cite the Constitution as the basis of their right to carry handguns. The second amendment is unique in the Bill of Rights in including an explanatory clause: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state...". You have to ask, why did the founders include that clause here? What does it mean? If the clause were absent -- if the Second Amendment read instead in total, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," the GOP argument for concealed carry for self protection would be stronger. But the Second Amendment doesn't read that way in total. And it doesn't say, "A citizen's right to protect herself and her family being essential, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It frames -- in fact, it limits -- the right in question by reference to a militia and the security of a free state. If you don't think the militia reference acts as a limitation on the right, ask yourself: would the scope of the right provided for in the Second Amendment be broader in the absence of the militia reference? Or narrower? (Just don't argue that it would be the same, unless you want to argue also that the clause means nothing, and that the men who drafted it were stupid, weren't experienced lawyers, and didn't appreciate the power of words in a legal document).

I'm also curious about how adherents to an "original intent" approach to jurisprudence approach the Second Amendment. Is the right to bear arms limited to muskets? Or if the intent in question has more to do with the well-regulated militia and free state limitation, shouldn't all citizens be able to purchase, at a minimum, their own RPGs and claymores? What about armored personnel carriers and howitzers? All of which would be more effective against a would-be tyrant than a concealed pistol...

Also: background checks, waiting periods, etc. can't reasonably be said to be a constitutional issue. You might not like them because you think they'll be subject to abuse, but it's hard to argue that background checks etc. in themselves infringe the right in question. No right set forth in the Bill or Rights -- or elsewhere, to my knowledge -- is absolute. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, for example, but commercial speech is subject to less protection than political. And regardless of your right to speak freely, governments can legitimately regulate where and when you speak, by, for example, insisting on a parade permit. You get the idea: the exercise of every individual right must and should be balanced against its impact on society as a whole. I don't see why the right to bear arms should be an exception to this essential rule.

Where would the right balance be? Reasonable people will differ, but novelist Jonathan Kellerman had some interesting thoughts in an excellent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, where he argued that too much individual freedom makes it too difficult to involuntarily commit a psychopath like the Virginia Tech shooter. In other words, in a mental health context, one possible cost of our adherence to individual rights is greater collective danger. And NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg's initiative to provide for greater information sharing among disparate law enforcement agencies also strikes me as a sensible way to protect society without unduly infringing anyone's individual rights.

Ah, but if it's too easy to commit someone, or we share too much information, there will be abuses, you say? Possibly, and these are potential costs that must be factored in. But we're still doing a balancing act, as we should be.

Actually, I think anyone who pauses to think about it will acknowledge that the Second Amendment doesn't, and shouldn't, create an absolute right. How many people really believe that children, criminals, or the mentally ill should have access to firearms? How many believe that firearms should be permitted anywhere (planes, government facilities)? Once you accept these limitations on the right, you've acknowledged that the right isn't, and shouldn't be, absolute.

When we're being honest and applying common sense, we all know that giving up a little individual freedom can create greater freedom as a whole. You might wish you had the freedom to run red lights or drive on whatever side of the road suited your fancy, but if everyone did so, the roads would be unusable. By each individual giving up some small measure of freedom, freedom is increased in the aggregate.

(Yes, I know, the comparison between guns and driving is inapplicable, because driving is a privilege while guns are a right. Okay, let's assume that driving *is* a right. Would you then argue that the government couldn't tell you which side of the road to drive on?)

Now, I understand the reason otherwise reasonable people sometimes advance absolutist arguments. They're afraid (with some justification) that once they admit the right to bear arms, like all rights, is subject to a balancing act, with the individual on one side of the scale and society on the other, the balance will start to be drawn against them. It seems better -- tactically, at least -- to argue that the balancing itself is a Constitutional infringement.

The absolutist tendency extends beyond the Second Amendment. A lot of the email I received in response to my previous post included the following arguments: "Anyone who wants a gun can get one illegally, so there's no point in making guns illegal." "Anyone who wants to kill is going to kill" (the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" chestnut). "Locks only stop honest people."

These kinds of assertions are as self-serving as they are simplistic. There are degrees of motivation in all things, including crime and violence. Some people are so motivated to get a gun that they'll find a way no matter what. Some people are so motivated to kill that they'll find a way under any circumstances. Some people want to break into your house so badly that they wouldn't be stopped even if you secured the place like Fort Knox. But it doesn't logically follow that *all* people are that motivated.

This is why I get so disgusted with the "Guns don't kill people" nonsense. Yes, it's technically true, but so what? I got one email that said, "I've never seen a gun get up and go kill someone by itself." Well, I haven't, either. But nor have I seen a suitcase nuke deliver itself to its target. If you argue that the tool is irrelevant to the act, you'd be comfortable with the same level of restriction on the availability of baseball bats, pistols, RPGs, and suitcase nukes.

In fact, common sense and everyday experience demonstrate that for pretty much every behavior, there is a range of motivation. At one end of the extreme is the person who will engage in the behavior no matter what. At the other end is the person who won't engage no matter what. And in between are all the people who are more likely to engage in the behavior if it's easy enough, and less likely to engage if it's hard enough. There are countless examples of this obvious truth. To use just one: fast food. Sure, a few people are so motivated to eat a Big Mac that they'd drive for hours to find one. For everyone else on the highway, MacDonald's pioneered the drive-through, and the "easy-on, easy-off" location. By making it a little easier for the majority of people interested in a Big Mac to get one, MacDonald's dramatically increased sales. The "easier to do = more of it" rule is is true for all human behavior. I see no logical or empirical reason to believe violence is a unique exception.

In other words, it might be true that the Virginia Tech killer would have gotten his guns no matter what. It might be true that he would have gone on his rampage no matter what. It doesn't follow that this is true for all people who want to acquire guns for murder. All laws are violated some of the time. That in itself is no argument for scrapping laws entirely. Houses will always be broken into. This is not an argument for leaving the doors unlocked.

In other words, the purpose of gun regulation isn't to "stop" attacks, so "we can never stop attacks like this" is a bogus argument. The purpose of such regulation, like that of all regulation, is to make such attacks more difficult, and therefore less common and less destructive. No law in history has ever outright "stopped" anything.

The sensible -- and, for me, compelling -- argument about Virginia Tech is that while not all people will have the motivation to evade gun regulations and other laws to do what the Virginia Tech killer did, some always will. When that happens, the police will almost never be able to respond in time to prevent a slaughter. Only armed citizens on the spot can do that.

At this point, if we're all being reasonable, we can acknowledge that we're engaging in a classic balancing act. How likely are such rampages and other violent crimes? How effective are armed citizens in preventing or mitigating them? What would be the effects on violence if guns were freely available? What would be the effects on violence if they were tightly restricted (remember, tightly restricted doesn't translate into "unavailable to criminals..." see also, Controlled Substances Like Cocaine and Heroin).

Strange, in a sense, that both sides are driven by fear: GOPs, that gun control will prevent them from defending themselves against armed criminals; GCPs, that lack of gun control will force them into defending themselves against armed criminals.

The most interesting thing about this debate, and other contentious ones like it, is that people seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge that there is, and should be, a balancing act at work. Part of the reluctance, as I argue above, is tactical, in that each side is afraid to concede anything to the other. Part of it is just laziness, because balancing acts require more mental energy than slogans. But I think there's a third factor too -- an emotional one. Maybe the reluctance to balance in part derives from how good it feels to believe your position is absolutely right, and the other is absolutely wrong. How superior I must therefore be to the other sign, not just intellectually, but morally, too! I'm telling you, if a conclusion feels that good, we ought to pause to reexamine it. There's probably more going on than we want to admit.