Planet Utah

How desperate is Hillary to be liked?

I caught a Saturday Night Live re-run last night. The opening sketch was a  debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the former played by Amy Poehler, the latter by Fred Armisen. A lot of the sketch was devoted to lampooning Tim Russert, but most of the jokes stemmed from the portrayal of Hillary as a know-it-all and Obama as a media darling short on substance.

The funniest Hillary bit was her response to a question about why she'd be more effective than Obama in standing up to special interests:

It's going to take a fighter, not a talker, someone who is aggressive enough, and relentless enough, and demanding enough to take them on -- someone so annoying, so pushy, so grating, so bossy and shrill, with a personality so unpleasant that at the end of the day, the special interests will have to go, "Enough. We give up. Life is too short to deal with this awful woman. Just give her what she wants so she'll shut up and leave us in peace." And I think the American people will agree that someone is me.

Funny, right? Also pretty unflattering. Calling her "annoying," "pushy," "grating," "bossy," and "shrill," saying that she has "a personality so unpleasant," and referring to her as "this awful woman" is pretty tough stuff, even as part of a joke. I mean, imagine if Hillary had been watching...how would that make her feel?

Trouble is, she was watching. She was right there on the set. The camera panned over to her once the skit was done, and everyone applauded. She offered a few unfunny comments, and then Amy Poehler walked over to riff a little with her. Here's SNL's recap:

The real Hillary Clinton gives her editorial response to SNL's sort-of re-enactment of last week's debate, clarifying that this is in no way an endorsement. She admires Amy's impression of her, despite the crazy laughter, but wants her earrings back. While back in New York City for a few hours, she's going to relax and have fun - no politics! So whether you're watching from Ohio or Texas... Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!

What might have been funny is if Hillary had come on and insisted to Amy--in a very annoying, pushing, grating, bossy, and shrill way--that she was not, in fact, annoying, pushing, grating, bossy, and shrill. Then you would have thought, "Oh, okay. Hillary was in on the joke. She's a good sport."

The way the thing played out, though, Hillary's thought process appears to have gone something like this: "They can say whatever nasty things they want, as long as I get to be on the show. That will make me seem young, hip, and likable."

Yeah, maybe -- but also completely without dignity.

No wonder Dell stuff is so cheap

Whenever I go into Wal-Mart, there are long lines to check out. There simply aren't enough cashiers for the number of customers. That's one way, I assume, that Wal-Mart keeps its costs down, and therefore can charge so little for its products.

Well, I've now been on hold at Dell for 20 minutes. All I need to do is give them a credit card number for a previous purchase. (I tried to use a gift card, but it didn't have sufficient funds.) I guess if you buy stuff from Dell you get a good price, and then you hope you never, ever have to deal with Customer Service.

The worst show in the history of television

It's "Verdict," with Dan Abrams, on MSNBC. It's a one-hour show, dedicated largely to the presidential campaign. Watch it, and I guarantee you will learn nothing. It's Abrams and a bunch of hack pundits and consultants talking about who "won" or "lost" the day.

If Abrams were an actor, you would say he chews the scenery. He rolls his eyes, mugs for the camera, gestures wildly, taunts his guests...all in an apparent effort to infuse the show with energy and passion. But the "issues" the show covers (e.g., who won the confrontation between Chelsea Clinton and the student who asked about Hillary's reaction to the news of her husband's Lewinsky infidelity?) are so incredibly petty, so downright insulting in their emptiness, you have to think Abrams is just overcompensating. I'm sure he thinks something along the following lines every night: "You know, I started out as a serious attorney. How the hell did I end up here?"

Anyway, here's how Abrams himself describes the show. It doesn't really do justice to the utter fatuousness of the exercise, but it gives you some idea of what (I hope) you're missing:

Too many programs on other networks, just invite two people on to "debate" some issue and leave viewers with little more than each side's talking points. I will try to use my legal background to assess right from wrong and ultimately announce the day's winners and losers.

A good example is our regular "On Their Trail" political segment where we compare the candidates' accusations and statements. Rather than simply have people discuss or debate the latest political spat with no resolution, we check the facts, assess the accusations and by the end of the segment we declare a loser – the candidate who, on that day, is "guiltier" of more misstatements, cheap shots, and blunders.

Clinton stuff

I usually get frustrated when I see the media obsess about something as silly as Hillary Clinton's comments about her trip to Bosnia. But she very clearly has said that there was no greeting ceremony (due to security concerns), while there very clearly WAS a greeting ceremony (because there were no security concerns). So, she's either telling a bald-faced lie, or she's having serious memory problems. Not particularly comforting, either way.

I'm going to sell my wisdom teeth on ebay

I am. You can try to stop me, but any such effort will be doomed to failure.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled seven or eight years ago, and I asked if I could keep them. They gave them to me to take home after the procedure was done. They were covered with blood and little pieces of my gums. When I got home, I boiled them, fished them out of the pot (the leftover water made a delicious broth), and soaked them in bleach. This left them clean, shiny, white 'n yellow, and totally non-stinky.

I've had them for so long now, I think it's time for someone else to enjoy them. So I'm going to put them on ebay.

Any predictions as to how much I'll get?

Footnote: do you want to hear another absolutely true tooth-related story? When the Penthouse Forum girl was in my apartment on Friday, I kept asking her what she did for work, and she kept refusing to tell me. This only increased my curiosity, so I kept asking. Finally she got frustrated and stuck her finger right in my mouth, pulling at the corner, exposing my teeth. When she took her finger out, I asked, "Are you a dental hygienist?" And so she was.

True story, I swear.

Dear Penthouse Forum

I never believed these stories were actually true...until last night. It was 2:00 in the morning, and I was lazily flipping around the TV channels, a pathetic end to another Friday night at home alone.

Just as I started to think about heading upstairs for bed, I noticed the silhouette of a woman standing outside the sliding glass door on my patio. She was holding something in one hand, waving with the other. I was startled for a moment, but then I stood to see what was up.

"Hi...", I said cautiously. "Hi," she said, looking and sounding a little buzzed. She held up a bottle of wine: "Do you want to have some wine with me? I'm your upstairs neighbor. We've never actually met." I smiled and stuck out my hand: "I'm Special Agent Johnny Utah. Come on in."

She was dressed in nondescript sweats and had no makeup on, but was undeniably sexy. Tall and athletic, with straight blond hair, she looked like a cross between Jenny Finch and Gail O'Grady. I offered her a seat on the couch and went to the kitchen to open the bottle of wine. "This night just got a lot more interesting," I thought to myself with a smile...

                                                            ***

Okay, I'm going to stop. The story pretty much goes downhill from there anyway. But it's true up to that point. This is the first time I've had the beginnings of an authentic Penthouse Forum story, so I figured I might as well share it.

Footnote: okay, I know you want to know what happened next. Basically, my neighbor--whom I had never met, as she said--had been out all night, came home drunk, was bored, and didn't feel like going to bed. So she brought a bottle of wine downstairs and asked if I wanted to share it. Apparently, she had walked past my glass patio door a million times and had seen me inside doing things that led her to believe I was a boring, anti-social dork. In a weird way that I understand but cannot explain, this angered her. So she came downstairs to rail against my anti-social, boring dorkiness. When I protested that although I am anti-social, I am not boring or a dork, she said, "Okay, Johnny Drama," a nickname that stuck for the rest of the night. She eventually fell asleep on my couch, so I covered her with a comforter and gave her a pillow. She woke up shortly thereafter, however, and wanted to go home. As she was leaving my place, she tripped and turned her ankle. I offered her an ice pack, which she refused. I walked her the rest of the way upstairs, made sure she got into her place, came back downstairs, and went to bed.

That, friends, is how a REAL Penthouse Forum story ends.

Obama speech

I suppose that I should chime in on the speech, mainly because: (a) that's what bloggers do, but also because (b) I care a lot about the intersection between politics and race. So, here goes:

1. I was surprised at how much of the speech was dedicated to addressing the comments of Obama's former pastor, Reverend Wright. Although this is being referred to as a speech on race, it was also a very political speech, too -- one designed to defuse the Wright controversy.
2. I found the rhetoric in the speech to be measured; it had a good sense of proportion and restraint without being wishy-washy or platitudinous.
3. Where was the call for blacks to take responsibility for their own lives, families, neighborhoods, and communities? There was a good bit of rhetoric devoted to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. No objection to that. There was even an acknowledgment that welfare may have contributed to the current plight of black families. But what about dysfunctional behavior -- most importantly, dropping out of school and having babies out of wedlock? If Bill Cosby can say it, so can Senator Obama. But he didn't.
4. It was refreshing to see Obama acknowledge that whites can and do have legitimate concerns and frustrations over affirmative action and the culture of racial grievance-nurturing.
5. Obama is a politician, and this was a political speech, so naturally the emphasis was on the place of race in this campaign, and in our politics and government generally. But that's not the way most of us experience racial issues. We experience them in our day-to-day dealings with people of other races, and in our conversations with friends and family. It would have been nice for Obama to talk a little bit more about the frustrations, resentments, and opportunities for reconciliation that occur in these situations.
6. There were a couple of paragraphs that tell you a whole lot about how Obama looks at the world:

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

There are a few things that struck me about these paragraphs. First, affirmative action certainly wasn't an explicit issue in either Reagan presidential campaign. I know it was an issue in the minds of some Americans (most famously, firefighters, cops, and other blue collar civil service types), but it wasn't an issue that Reagan rode to victory. 

Second, it's interesting that when Obama mentions welfare and crime, he's clearly implying a connection between those words and American blacks -- the connection being that welfare recipients and criminals are both disproportionately black. Is that so obvious in today's politics that you don't have to make the connection explicit?

Third, sure, politicians exploited fear of crime for political gain. Those politicians included Bill Clinton. But if violent and property crimes were committed exclusively by whites, I imagine that crime STILL would have been a good political issue in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Fourth, that whole second paragraph is Obama's unified theory of "what's gone wrong." It's interesting...not substantively interesting, but interesting in that it's mainly empty rhetoric. It's like hearing John McCain talk about foreign policy and then talk about economics. He has a passion for the former and significant knowledge and experience. When it comes to the latter, he talks about it only because he has to, and usually does so unconvincingly.

Similarly, the portions of the Obama speech devoted to race are thoughtful, nuanced, and thorough. The stuff about the "middle class squeeze," though, comes off as an afterthought, moldy rhetoric straight out of the Democratic prayer book. It reinforces the idea that Obama is an unconventional presidential candidate in one way only -- he's black.

The inevitable "I'll be damned" moment in the concealed weapons debate

Michigan recently celebrated the six-year anniversary of the passage of concealed-carry legislation, which allows law abiding gun owners to carry a concealed weapon in public places (assuming they do the training, have a permit, pass a background check, etc.) The NRA recently ran a story on this topic, and quoted someone from the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police as follows: "I think the general consensus out there is that things are not as bad as we expected it could be. What we anticipated didn't happen, and I think we should breathe a sigh of relief."

You see this in state after state. Before concealed-carry legislation happens, cops, the mainstream media, and anti-gun groups wail and gnash their teeth. Their quotes are pretty predictable; almost inevitably they involve the phrases "wild west," "blood in the streets," and/or "fender-benders turning into shoot-outs." Then, once the laws pass and nothing changes, the more honorable ones among them say, "I'll be damned...guess we were wrong."

For reasons best known to me, I once compiled a series of these "before-and-after" quotes and related article excerpts from various sources. What follows is a big old list of them. No need to read them all. They pretty much say the same thing, over and over again:

“Glenn White, president of the 2,350-member Dallas Police Association, said he lobbied against the (shall-issue) law in 1993 and 1995 because he thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. ‘That hasn't happened,’ he said. ‘All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn't happen,’ said Senior Cpl. White, a patrol officer who works the 3-to-11 p.m. shift. ‘No bogeyman. I think it's worked out well, and that says good things about the citizens who have permits. I'm a convert.’”

 

“Some of the public safety concerns which we imagined or anticipated…have been unfounded or mitigated.” – Fairfax County, Virginia Police Major Bill Brown.

 

“The concerns that I had – with more guns on the street, folks may be more apt to square off against one another with weapons – we haven't experienced that.” – Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina Police Chief Dennis Nowicki

 

“The Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police opposed the bill, saying that more guns would mean more incidences of gun-related injuries. Craig Birdwhistell, executive director of the association, said so far that hasn't happened. ‘No, we haven't experienced the problems that some of our chiefs of police have anticipated,’ he said.”

 

“’I have changed my opinion of this (program),’ Campbell County (Kentucky) Sheriff John Dunn said. ‘Frankly, I anticipated a certain type of people applying to carry firearms, people I would be uncomfortable with being able to carry a concealed weapon. That has not been the case. These are all just everyday citizens who feel they need some protection.’”

 

“…Lt. William Burgess of the Calhoun County (Michigan) Sheriff Department said ‘to the best of my knowledge, we have not had an issue.’ Burgess admitted he is surprised. ‘I had expected there would be a lot more problems,’ he said. ‘But it has actually worked out.’”

 

“As you know, I was very outspoken in my opposition to the passage of the Concealed Handgun Act. I did not feel that such legislation was in the public interest and presented a clear and present danger to law-abiding citizens by placing more handguns on our streets. Boy was I wrong. Our experience in Harris County, and indeed statewide, has proven my initial fears absolutely groundless.” – John B. Holmes, District Attorney, Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston).

 

“…Louisiana Sheriffs Association Executive Director Bucky Rives, who expressed concern about the law before it passed, said he hasn't heard anything about the effect of the law – good or bad. ‘So far, I guess, so good,’ Rives said. ‘I cringed when they passed the law, but I stand corrected thus far.’

 

“’The truth is, I don't know that there has been a change one way or the other here or anywhere else,’ said Anoka County (Minnesota) Sheriff Bruce Andersohn. ‘We had one side that swore the world would be safer, we'd be in better condition, we'd have a fall in crime. That's not a reality. The other side was that this would be the Wild West with a shooting on every corner. Well, I'm not seeing that, either.’”

 

“…Oakland County (Michigan) Prosecutor David Gorcyca said most (concealed weapon permit) violations are minor, for infractions such as being intoxicated while carrying a weapon or carrying a weapon without a license. ‘We haven't seen a huge increase in offenses,’ he said. ‘It's already been three years. I don't think we'll ever see any increases.’”

 

“’We have not seen, in Michigan, that people get out their guns and start blasting each other,’” said Matt Davis, of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. ‘It appears the new law is working

 

“’What we've found is there's been no significant increase in crime, because the people getting permits are law-abiding people,’ said Katie Bower, one of the administrators of Michigan's 2001 concealed-carry law. ‘There have been a few cases where we've had problems, but it's not statistically significant.’”

 

“’Everyone who looks at this who was anticipating more violence sees that the numbers of problems is (sic) very small,’ said Kim Eddie, assistant executive secretary of the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, a state agency. ‘Both sides see that.’”

 

“In my professional experience in South Dakota, a ‘shall-issue’ concealed-carry state where permits are issued to anyone who can pass a background check, I have never had—nor heard of—any problems with a person legally carrying a concealed pistol.” – South Dakota municipal patrol officer, Adrian Alan

 

“’There was concern here initially that more officers would be killed or more officers would be drawing on people who didn’t announce right away that they were carrying,’ says Kym Koch at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. ‘We haven’t seen that.’”

 

“’The people that go through all the effort to get a pistol permit seldom get into any trouble with the police,’ Fulton County (Georgia) Police Maj. Terry Mulkey said.

 

“'We haven't seen any cases where a permit holder has committed an offense with a firearm,’ (the Covington, Kentucky police chief) said. '’Licensing is not the problem relating to firearms.’”

 

“Sgt. Tom Keller, who helped usher in the (Nevada) law during the two years he spent with the Police Department's concealed-weapons detail, said he couldn't recall any cases during his watch ‘where there was inappropriate use of a CCW (permit).’ Nor could his boss at the time, Lt. Bill Cavagnaro. ‘I don't recall anybody getting in any trouble,’ he says. ‘It seems to me most people who had the CCWs acted responsibly.’”

 

“’We feel the program has done very well over the past 10 years,’ said Sgt. Bill Whalen, supervisor of the (Arizona) DPS Concealed Weapon Permit Unit. ‘The program has served as a model for other states.’ There has been no analysis of whether the concealed-weapon law has had any effect on crime, Whalen said, but nearly everything he's heard points to the vast majority of permit holders as responsible gun owners focused on safety. ‘All the people who get concealed weapon permits are law-abiding citizens. These are the people who aren't getting in trouble,’ Whalen said. ‘The people who don't care for laws, in general, don't get permits.’”

 

“A lot of the critics argued that the law-abiding citizens couldn't be trusted, nor were they responsible enough to avoid shooting a stranger over a minor traffic dispute. But the facts do speak for themselves. None of these horror stories have materialized.” – Sheriff David Williams, Tarrant County, Texas

 

“I think that says something, that we’ve gotten to this point in the year and in the thirdlargest city in America (Houston) there has not been a single charge against anyone that had anything to do with a concealed handgun.” – Harris County (Texas) District Attorney John Holmes

 

“Florida has the longest track record, and officials there maintain that the state has encountered few problems with concealed weapons. ‘It’s not the old Wild West that everyone predicted, with shoot-outs at traffic lights,’ says John Russi, director of the licensing division in Florida’s Department of State. ‘It just didn’t materialize.’”

 

“’I haven't seen any problems from people carrying weapons. And we haven't had more crime broken up because people have weapons,’ said Lt. M. E. Frank of the Virginia State Police division, which supervises 14 counties in that state.'"

 

“’I haven’t seen any problems because of’ the law, (West Virginia Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Stephens) said. ‘Most of the problems we have is (sic) with people who aren’t going to get a permit anyway.’”

 

“Concealed handgun permits have been available in New Mexico for nearly a year, and so far, about 2,000 state residents have chosen to pay hundreds of dollars for a license to keep a hidden, loaded weapon. When the state Legislature enacted the permit law last year, some people said it would make them feel safer and deter crime. Others, including those who unsuccessfully challenged the law at the state Supreme Court, said concealed guns would increase public fear. But law-enforcement officers in Santa Fe County say the new law has no noticeable impact.

 

“Cabarrus (North Carolina) Sheriff Robert Canaday said the county's crime rate had been falling before the new concealed-weapons law passed. ‘I haven't seen any impact whatsoever,’ Canaday said. ‘We haven't had any incidents where these folks who have the permits have done anything wrong, and you can't draw any correlation between concealed-weapons permits and the crime rate.’”

 

“When the state’s concealed weapons law was passed in 1996, critics said it would turn South Carolina into Dodge City. Although a few abuses have been recorded, law enforcement officials say the program has been effective for the most part and is growing in popularity. …Former Gov. David Beasley signed the concealed gun bill into law in 1996 after heated debate in the Legislature. At the time, critics said it would just add trouble to the state’s gun culture. But (state police captain Joe) Dorton said very few permit holders have abused the privilege since the law was enacted.”

 

“…there haven’t been reports of people with concealed handgun permits getting in trouble with their guns, even though critics of the law predicted there would be problems. ‘I haven’t heard of any (problems),’ said Sgt. Michael Noel, supervisor of daily operations in the (Louisiana) State Police’s concealed handgun section.”

Imagine this exchange...

I'm packing up my place, so I'm pulling some long hours with the TV blaring. Tonight I happened upon "Hardball." Not my favorite show, but any port in a storm. So, Chris Matthews says to a Democratic guest, "What if Hillary gets the nomination, and John McCain says to her during a debate: 'You and I cast the same vote authorizing the president to go to war in Iraq. But when the war got unpopular, you ran in the other direction. I, on the other hand, insisted that we commit even more resources to the war, even though that was terribly unpopular at the time. It turns out I was right and you were wrong. If you ask me, that's the kind of test that a chief executive must pass. You failed it. I didn't'?"

(Matthews didn't go that far...I'm extrapolating from what he actually said.)

Democratic pundit says, "Hillary should say, 'I was lied to, the American people were lied to, the entire world was lied to. If President Bush had told the truth, I never would have voted for the war.'"

That's a bullshit argument, but pointing out the difference between lying and being mistaken isn't likely to score debating points. So, here's what I have in mind for McCain: "Hillary, lying to Congress is a felony, and taking the country to war on the basis of a pack of lies is an impeachable offense. So, am I to assume that you'd like Colin Powell, Don Rumseld, and Condi Rice imprisoned for lying to Congress, and that you'd like President Bush impeached and removed from office? And if so, why have you done nothing in the Senate to make that happen?"

It's hard for me to imagine an answer Hillary could give that would make her look good.

Footnote: If Hillary is smart, she won't resort to the "I was lied to" defense. She'll say something along these lines: "After three years of watching Americans die, watching billions of taxpayer dollars being poured down a rat-hole, watching al-Qaeda establish a presence in Iraq where it previously had none, watching Iraqi politicians make virtually no progress in establishing a stable government, watching this administration completely mismanage the war, and watching the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate daily because we were so distracted by Iraq, I decided it was time to put an end to the entire enterprise. I still believe that was the right decision at the time, and I think the American people agree with me."

How to address the economics gaffe

If you haven't seen this quote from John McCain, expect to see it often in the coming months: "The issue of economics is something that I've really never understood as well as I should." When Democrats beat him up over this, he'll need to respond. Perhaps ironically, the basis for a good response comes in what McCain himself said right after he uttered the sentence quoted above: "I understand the basics, the fundamentals, the vision, all that kind of stuff."

This is what I could imagine McCain saying to defuse the issue:

Yes, I've said that the language of economists sometimes sounds like ancient Greek to me. When they start talking about how Hungarian currency arbitrage could have a negative effect on factor returns in Micronesian manufacturing, I admit that I start to fog over a bit.

But let me tell you what I do understand. I understand that the formula for a strong economy is to keep taxes low, to reduce government borrowing and spending, to fight for free and fair trade, and to clear the deadwood of federal regulations that make it hard to do business in this country. That's the economic policy my administration will pursue.

As for whether large-cap international equities are a promising vehicle for the institutional investor over the next 18 months, I'll leave that to the economists to decide.