Home Front Conventional Wisdom: Two weeks ago: "It's the economy again, stupid."

One week ago: "Yeah, but it's a jobless recovery."

This week:

A sudden improvement in the U.S. employment picture on Friday sent some economists scrambling to revise their views on when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates . . . [T]he October payrolls report showed a 126,000 gain, more than double analysts' forecasts. Dramatic revisions to previous data showed three consecutive months of gains.

It's all Bush's . . . um . . . fault.

That Said: U.S. foreign policy is a big ship, one that doesn't make hard turns with screws pulling on hard rudder. Thus, the mid-East reaction to Bush's speech didn't deviate from the old template:

President Bush's call for greater democracy in the Middle East is drawing a cautious response from commentators in the region, who say the United States must first show it is honestly moving to resolve regional conflicts.

Perhaps they're referring to the Israel/Palestine question, hmm? That will always be the fallback of statists and stasists in the region -- "Fix the Palestinian situation first!" I would be sympathetic if so many in the region weren't working to bail water back into the leaky lifeboat of a "peace" process.

The Speech: Comparisons to Churchill and FDR are popping up among sympathetic bloggers, perhaps because Bush's speech invoked Westminster and "the four freedoms" explicitly. (It's worth reading, by the way; Bush's speechwriters are good at their job.) There's no denying, as Michael Totten notes, that Bush's vision is decidedly a liberal one. Another noteworthy liberal, Gregg Easterbrook, called Bush's speech "a masterwork." I don't wish to beat a dead horse, but the policy that Bush outlined is steeped in the tradition and the best ideals of the left: self-determination, liberty, dignity:

The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.

Further, Bush expressed the great ideal of universality:

Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress.

As I listen, I become more and more convinced that, at least in foreign policy, a Bush presidency is the natural choice for liberals with a non-partisan attachment to their core principles. In fact, the very traditions that the GOP embraced for years, Bush explicitly rejects:

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export.

What Bush rejects, as Totten notes, are the very realpolitik principles that liberals derided in the past (in Totten's words, the "our bastards" policy). But most of the liberal commentariat (i.e., those who define their liberal commitment by their degree of opposition to Bush) is silent on the speech. Perhaps I'm reading too much actual policy into a foot-stomper speech, but I don't think so. As Dan Drezner says, up until now, "President Bush hadn't articulated the case clearly enough for why the U.S. should be in Iraq regardless of the WMD question." Perhaps not, but he nailed it yesterday.

Movie Friday: Here's an interesting post from NR's Corner on innovative, groundbreaking movies:

Several readers have complained about my dissing of 2001. I stand my ground. There's one point a couple readers have made though I will concede. They say if I'd seen it when it first came out I would think differently. That is undoubtedly true. But some movies -- and books and bands and art -- are significant because they break new ground and some are significant because they are timeless. I'm sure there are other Cornerites more qualified to discuss that point at length. But it seems to me that 2001 was pathbreaking but it wasn't timeless. I feel the same way about Citizen Kane, by the way. I watched it in film class in college so I know all about the groundbreaking techniques used in the film. But those techniques have now been absorbed by the trade. What's left is a pioneering movie which is more interesting as a historical document in the history cinema than as a movie.

I've made the same observation myself. Let me put it in the context of a favorite actor of mine, Humphrey Bogart. Michael Curtiz's Casablanca is one of my all-time favorites. It's a stirring, heavyhanded melodrama with great performances, outsized characters, and a zippy script. But it is, as a cinematic achievement, wholly inferior to John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Sierra Madre takes a fairly simple morality tale (more or less an updating of Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale) and brings it to life through outstanding use of black and white film, pioneering use of location shooting (i.e., refusing to "pretty things up"), and iconoclastic use of casting (e.g., Bogart, so frequently a hero or anti-hero, is neither in this film). Casablanca is a fun, superficially symbolic story on a thoroughly conventional canvas, while Sierra Madre is an allegorical story told with great artistic merit.

So why would I rather watch Casablanca any day of the week? So much of what made Sierra Madre unique and astounding (and, at the time, unpopular) has slowly become part of the film vernacular, much the way the pioneering techniques of Alfred Hitchcock literally created the cinematic syntax of horror and suspense films. Casablanca, which may have been the best "B" movie ever, has dressy but unconvincing sets, low comedy, crowd-pleasing musical numbers, and a Max Steiner score that is constantly barging in on the dialogue; meanwhile, the story is pure soap opera.

As for Sierra Madre, its outstanding features were either co-opted by convention or overcome by events: casting against type became more common as the studios' monopoly on actors began to crumble; the dominance of Technicolor meant that audiences forgot how to watch B&W movies (that is, B&W in the late-40s/early-50s became associated with lower budgets, rather than artistic choice); location filming became the norm, and John Ford's epics quickly outclassed any location shooting that came before. What's left is, as stated above, a historical document worth pointing to and saying, "Huston was the first one to do that!"

Casablanca, on the other hand, was and always will be an exercise in pure movie enjoyment.

The Vietnam Template: War College Fellow Mac Owens takes on the Iraq/Vietnam comparison:

The anti-Coalition forces can harass the U.S. forces and inflict casualties, but they cannot prevail unless we permit them to. But we do need to acknowledge what is happening there and to modify our approach. In Iraq, we need to isolate the Baathist regions . . . But we also have to secure the borders between Iraq and its neighbors, especially Iran and Syria. These countries need to understand that they will pay dearly for supporting the jihadists that cross their borders into Iraq. Those who believe this is a diplomatic issue need to recall the observation of Frederick the Great: "Diplomacy without force is like music without instruments."

No, Iraq is not Vietnam. In fact, he goes on to say, Vietnam wasn't even Vietnam.

In defense of Martha: It's certainly been a fun game to bash Martha Stewart over her alleged insider trading w/r/t ImClone. Of course the bashing really has more to do with her personality (as perceived) and her near-monopoly over decorating the homes and minds of the middle class. She's a success story that people love to tear down. I'm sure I've taken my share of pot-shots at her.

Comes now "Reason" with its eloquent and legally persuasive defense of Martha and the federal charges. The whole thing is worth a read, but here's just a particularly persuasive snippet:

The most serious criminal charge against her is not perjury or insider trading but securities fraud, based on the fact that she denied to the press, personally and through her lawyers, that she had engaged in insider trading. This was done, the feds say, not for the purpose of clearing her name, but only to prop up the stock price of her own publicly traded company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In other words, her crime is claiming to be innocent of a crime with which she was never charged.

As for the SEC’s civil case, it hinges on an elastic understanding of insider trading, an offense Congress has never defined. The justification for the ban on insider trading, which makes little economic or legal sense, is just as murky as the behavior covered by it. Given the difficulty of figuring out exactly what constitutes insider trading (let alone why it’s illegal), it is entirely possible that Stewart and her lawyers weren’t sure whether she had broken the rules. In any event, under existing case law, it’s clear that she didn’t.

The remainder of the article goes on to question the foundation of insider trading laws and whether they actually help achieve market efficiency. I'm not quite ready to say they don't, but you decide for yourself.

Good Point: Some talk today about the intimidation of artists regarding CBS's decision to send down the Reagan pic. (USA Today's Bob Bianco calls it "cowardly" and "creative sabotage.") Over here, though, Meghan Keane quotes Barbra Streisand, who says:

I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this...these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents.

Says Keane, "Is she talking about [CBS's] The Reagans, or [Mel Gibson's] The Passion?"

Arnold and the GOP: Harold Meyerson has an insightful (if perhaps plagued by overheated rhetoric) look at the curious relationship at work, what it means for the next year or so, and how Schwarzenegger could change the party:

In California, the governor-elect is hailed as the Republicans' Great White (or, through the miracle of modern tanning, Orange) Hope. The first Republican gubernatorial candidate to proclaim himself pro-choice, anti-assault weapon and anti-homophobic, Schwarzenegger exhibited a crossover appeal that the GOP hadn't seen since Ronald Reagan invented the Reagan Democrats.

Meanwhile, though, Bush has a base to appeal to:

More pointedly, as Karl Rove himself has noted, 4 million Christian evangelicals did not bestir themselves to vote in the election of 2000. At the rate things are going, Bush will need every one of those votes next year. Time, then, to unveil the real risk to our security. No, not al-Qaeda fanatics plotting the deaths of Americans at home or abroad. The administration's credibility on military and security matters generally may not be a whole lot higher than the Democrats' when the election rolls around.

Happily, Republicans have identified a threat right here at home on which the Democrats lack all backbone: marauding Unitarian ministers, cruising back alleys, threatening to swoop up same-sex couples and, before anyone can think better of it, marry them. Listen closely and you can almost hear the whispers: "Hey, big fellas -- wanna tie the knot?"

So what to make of it? As popular as Arnold is, the GOP is not about to stand for G(ay marriage), O(rgies in the gym), and P(ornography) -- much as we might celebrate such a change. Likewise, Arnold is not going to ever be socially conservative. It looks like it will be an awkward dance for Arnold and the party – and, importantly, for Arnold and Dubya. This is important stuff, and the GOP has to be thinking about the inroads Arnold made into independent-voter territory. Further, if Bush won in 2000 (arguably: yeah, yeah, yeah) with 4 million of his supposed base sitting on their hands, what kind of trade is worthwhile to pick up some Schwarzenegger Republicans in 2004? Meyerson calls for a "Sister Souljah" moment within the GOP, presumably on social issues. Don’t doubt for a second that the Bush team is looking for the right issue, the right time; they showed a bit of this by hammering some of the evangelicals who, post-9/11, attacked Islam.

Where Meyerson overreaches, though, is in his characterization of the stalemate:

[Schwarzenegger could] condemn his fellow party leaders for their manipulation of xenophobic, homophobic and racist fears. That speech would be no less powerful if delivered with an immigrant's accent.

Or Schwarzenegger could take a pass, and the Republican Party could stay its current course, alternating between Old Testament morality and new age sexuality in accord with the demographics of the district. Call it a big-tent party, or a boundless well of cynicism.

That’s a bit unfair, considering even Democrats have local/national conflicts that can’t easily be papered over. A nominee Howard Dean and his party will have to do a similar dance over guns, considering how Democrats accused Bush of giving the NRA their own West Wing suite. Dean, as Vermont (i.e., local) politics requires, is more vocally pro-NRA than Bush. Likewise, Gephardt has spoken loudly against NAFTA, as befits his Midwestern, union-heavy, blue-collar Democrat base. But NAFTA was a crowning triumph of the Clinton administration’s trade policy and a plank in the New Democrat platform that isn’t likely to disappear. A smug right-wing commentator could make hay about such cynicism (to use Meyerson’s word), and no doubt one is out there now, doing just that. In reality, though, that’s politics. Tom Daschle would love a majority in the Senate in 2004, even if it means getting out the vote for a pro-life Democrat. But the party certainly wouldn’t run a pro-life Democrat for president, since it takes away a good gender issue. Good politics? Yep. Cynicism? Hardly.

Keep on rockin' the vote in the free world: Here's the transcript of last night's Rock the Vote. It is actually pretty funny in the beginning when CNN puts together this montage of the candidates and their stock phrases. It then gets pretty inane. Pandering to the "Youth" so you can seem with it. They don't vote anyway, so why bother? Only Gephardt understood this and was eating at a diner in Iowa.

STILL READING IT: My favorite part is Dean playing Neil Young in "Southern Man" and then Edwards coming back in "Sweet Home [North Carolina]". Priceless pandering.

FAVORITE SHARPTON LINE: On why he's an "authentic" politician: "I've gone to jail ... I've been stabbed."

EDWARDS AGAIN: On how to create jobs. First, identify areas that need jobs, then dole out money to people as "seed money". Also, give "help" to businesses that will re-locate to areas that need it. Hmmm, this sounds like "handouts" to me.

KUCINICH: Also on job creation. Undo the Bush tax cuts on the rich. Then take 15% of the Pentagon budget and put into universal kindergarten. How this helps the economy is left unsaid. What a loon.

Props to Viking

Dems and Whigs: I don't place too much stock in the parallel. First, slavery was a major factor in dividing and destroying the Whigs. I don't see a similar divide on any issue for the Dems. Of course, the Dems do have to worry that minorities will one day desert the party. Were it not for the fact that blacks and hispanics (aside from Cubans) vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, the party would be a footnote after 1980. (And this is, of course, why Al Sharpton gets to go to all these debates -- even though he's a disreputable shakedown artist and race hustler -- and have soi disant principled candidates like Lieberman kiss his filthy hand.) But I don't foresee a quick change to the voting patterns of minorities ahead, and certainly not a shift on par with what abolitionism wrought.

Besides, I bet in the 1850s, people thought an implosion of the Whigs would be great for the Democrats. By 1861, a Republican -- you know, the third party -- was in the White House.

The future's so bright: An interesting answer to Vodka Pundit's question about the future of the Democratic party is proposed on the Armed and Dangerous blog. Essentially, if the Democratic party goes the way of the Whigs, the big winners are the Greens and the Libertarians, with the Democratic stranglehold on the black vote being broken. Interestingly, he makes no mention of the Independent party, proof that that group managed to bicker itself completely out of any serious discussion. So no more Jesse or Ross, sorry.

I can't see anyone from the Green party winning a significant national election, as their whole raison d' etre is so micro-focused that they'd have trouble broadening their base enough. The Libertarians might have a better chance, if they either embraced a more hawkish foreign policy or better explained how foreign direct investment and Levi jeans could transform the third world.

In the end, I think the point is that the Democratic party is so split into interest groups with checkbooks, that there is no cohesive set of principles keeping the party together. Maybe a split is inevitable. The big winner, though, would certainly be the Republicans. This seems so obvious, but Eric didn't mention it. The GOP might not gain in actual numbers, and may even lose some if, for instance, the Libertarian party became a more realistic choice, but a fractured Democratic party would scatter its members in a variety of directions. The net result would be marginally stronger GOP. Predictable chaos would then ensue.

Heeby Jeeby: Soft-porn and Nancy Reagan are words that shouldn't be used in the same 'graph. I have a funny twitch in my neck, suddenly. Anyway...

The Liberal Media rears its head often enough that I don't think this proves anything other than that network executives have spines as sturdy as as jellyfish and couldn't stand on their principles if it was part of a field sobriety test. I mean politics is important, but not if it hurts the overnights of Everybody Loves Raymond, right.

Shame on me: When I said "by all accounts this show is no smear job" that wasn't correct. By many accounts, it is a smear job. My point is that the series does take time out to show Reagan the moral, upright family man, as well as one who did great things for our nation and our world. Does it take shots at him too? Well, duhhhh.

Triple Shame: I trust CBS to do a fair telepic on Reagan like I trust Fox to do a fair telepic on Clinton. If you have any doubt in your mind that it will be a hatchet job either way, you deserve the "education" watching network TV offers you.

Nevertheless, I join my colleagues: Show the damn thing already, fer chrissake.

More interestingly...: How does this square with the "liberal media" label? On the one hand, evil liberal t.v. channel produces slanted, one-sided smear mini-series to poke fun at the "Great Communicator". Then, it censors itself and boots the show to Showtime where those looking for some late-night soft porn get ... Nancy Reagan, or at least Judy Davis as Nancy Reagan. I think CBS is suffering from an identity crisis.

Double shame: I, too, am disappointed with CBS for pulling The Reagans, though I diagree that this was much of an educational loss to anyone interested in learning about Reagan. There's much to be said for and against the Reagan years, including letting his administration run important operations without his oversight. If CBS wants to produce a documentary that criticizes RR, I'll support it and watch it, with an open if critical mind. If the reported quote from the script re: Reagan's take on AIDS sufferers was accurate, I think it's safe to assume that this was not such an intellectually and historically accurate look at the man or the couple.

That said, I think it should have been shown, on CBS not Showtime, simply because this sets a horrible precedent for networks caving in to pressure. It says they don't have the guts to make controversial programs and put them on the air despite hurting a few feelings. I may not have liked their treatment of the Reagans, but I wasn't about to boycott CBS over it. And I think it's important that media outlets don't always censor themselves to the point that caution becomes the rule. It's boring and doesn't "move the ball" in an intellectual sense.

Aside from that, I don't like sacred cows, even if Reagan is a man I respect and admire, despite his flaws.

The Reagan Myth: Apparently CBS finally got adjusted as to what happens to un-authorized portrayals as to the former Idol in Chief, Ronald Reagan. It's pulling the miniseries starring James Brolin as the Gipper. I don't know that I've ever seen such a protected image as Reagan's. Granted, he's still alive, which sets a different spin on things, but beginning with Nancy standing in for her man, and culminating recently with Noonan's fawning account of his life, the airport, and the aircraft carrier, it's clear that, perhaps much like JFK, Reagan is being set up as THE icon for his branch of idealogy, and this is a strict orthodoxy, tolerating no dissent.

I think it's fair that he's being picked as the godhead of conservatives, but that doesn't mean critical examination of that life can't occur (even Jesus gets his makeovers). If CBS is pulling the show and putting it on Showtime, for fear of boycotts (and by all accounts, this show is no smear-job, but rather tries to show a complex man during complex times) because certain people can't handle being criticized, then it shows that there is something afoot larger than the man. It also does many a disservice, especially younger people who now won't even have a chance to learn about someone that they either were too young to remember, or maybe missed altogether. Shame on CBS.

At least they have their sports teams: Apparently, people in Pittsburgh are a bit thin-skinned these days. So much so that they're sending death threats to a cartoonist who dared remark that the Steel City didn't smell so great. This is a strip called "Get Fuzzy" about a smarmy talking cat (think Garfield, but funny; hold the lasagna), a clueless talking dog, and their owner. I guess nothing newsworthy is going on over there.

Arrrgh: Bloody Roger Kidd be the name. Coincidentally, my two-year-old son learned to say "Aye, matey!" with the proper growl this weekend.

Oops. Scratch that. Real pirates don't say things like "coincidentally." Avast! Me boy talks like a deck swabbin' bilge rat, not a land lubber!

Re the pirate life: "Dirty William Rackham" be at the helm. And it'll stay that way, as none will come near me due to some inexplicable odor. Cool name, though, and that's what really attracts the ladies.