The Icepick Cometh

Dear readers (both of you),

We're now more or less blogging exclusively over at our WordPress.com site at http://theicepickcometh.wordpress.com.

So c'mon and visit us over there and read The Icepick's new post on the Dark Knight and President Bush, a reaction from a movie nerd to a piece earlier this summer in the Wall Street Journal.

Thanks for reading and for following us over there.
That is all.

Hugs and hisses,
PublisherCat

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Raised in the shadow of a high-ranking Navy father and grandfather, serving and suffering honorably in a war most of the rest of the country would rather regret if not forget, John McCain is the pitch-perfect example of his generation — overshadowed by others older and younger than him (even his younger Veep candidate!), fighting the good fight, respected, productive, a leader backstage, yet measuring just shy of national leadership at center stage.

Like a famous senator from more than 150 years ago, more likely to serve America than lead it.

I'm not the first one to suggest the comparison between John McCain and Henry Clay. Indeed, one author believes McCain is actually Henry Clay reincarnated. We'll not touch the spiritual end of that, but the same author notes, quite appropriately, that Henry Clay was declared in 1957 by a JFK-led Senate committee to be the greatest U.S. Senator in history. Likewise, the author notes, McCain is a respected and influential Senator. He is popular, too, I would add — Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman called him a great friend — and despite his maverick status, McCain has long been one of the most powerful senators in a non-leadership post.

Henry Clay ran for, and lost, the Presidency three times.

McCain's Silent Generation, as described by Strauss & Howe, comprise Americans born from 1925 to 1942. They "grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. They came of age just too late to be war heroes [McCain obviously bucks this point, but his war was Vietnam, not WWII of the 'Greatest Generation'] and just too early to be youthful free spirits. Instead, this early-marrying Lonely Crowd became the risk-averse technicians and professionals as well as the sensitive rock ‘n rollers and civil-rights advocates of a post-crisis era in which conformity seemed to be a sure ticket to success."

Likewise, here's an excerpt from Sam Tanenhaus' New York Times story earlier this year on McCain's generation, one largely born in the ’30s but who have never elected one of their own as President:

Young people born in the 1930s experienced no such tumult [as did the Baby Boomers]. They typically came of age in the 1950s, when consensus reigned, and with it conformism. Young Americans were collectively disengaged from politics and distrustful of ideology. They were the “silent generation,” content to be guided by their elders: Eisenhower, the avuncular white-haired president who had been the hero of World War II, and the Wise Men who formulated the strategies of the cold war.

In this climate the young were more likely to serve than to lead. The Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953, claimed nearly as many American casualties as Vietnam, and yet, despite the universal draft, there was scarcely a protest from those waiting to be called.

Strauss & Howe's groundbreaking 1991 book, Generations, defined American generations in roughly 20-year splits occurring in cycles of four. They later renamed the archetypes, but their theory did not change. McCain's Silent Generation lines up with the Compromise Generation of of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, who were a collective "zero for twelve in runs for the Presidency" and whose generation "were fated to careers of secret turmoil and hidden frustration" who "at their best, their irrepressible instinct for openness and honesty ennobled even their failures."

Strauss & Howe quote a 73-year-old Henry Clay (at one year older than McCain):

"'Life itself is but a compromise,' observed the … 'Great Compromiser' himself, as he proposed the last of his famous balancing acts. 'All legislation, all government, all society is formed upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, and courtesy.'"

Or as McCain would surely say today, the ability to "reach across the aisle" to "reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again."
 

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Meh.

It was not a great and rousing speech — yes, his personal story is rich and worthy, and at another time, perhaps in place of either Bush, Sen. John McCain could have been (past tense) a fine president (or at least better than either Bush). But like his Silent Generation cohorts, he still seems more of a behind-the-scenes worker. Just like those of a prior generation (but of the same generational type, as Strauss & Howe defined it) — Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun — he is a Great Compromiser (not, of course, a compromiser of his own ideals but rather a person who can get two sides to talk ). And though his backstory inspires, he himself lacks that inspirational touch of a leader.

That's as much the reality of his generation as it is of John S. McCain.

You can see it in his speaking.

What could have been the most powerful part of his speech, where he at last made the very frequent drawing on his own POW history relevant (it's been powerful, yes, but relevant?), where he said he hoped no family should go through what his has in War, he topped the ball rather than drive it solidly.

I still don't know if it was a problem of delivery — he was getting there, his voice rising in power. But he didn't finish the note with a flourish, with inspiration in his voice. I originally thought this was a failing of the speechwriting, rather than the delivery.

I'm running for President to keep the country I love safe, and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military and the power of our ideals — to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

See? Re-reading it, it reads so much better than when he spoke it. This is where a great speaker can inspire the masses, something as true and as old as the ancient Greek democrats themselves, something the GOP has been deriding lately, but overlooking (oddly, they the Party of the Great Communicator).

What did turn out to be the most powerful part of his speech, the "a cause greater than yourself" line, resonated with me. It echoed in some ways the JFK and Obama calls to service.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

Some of these, ironically, harken to Obama's derided days as a Community Organizer ("Defend the rights of the oppressed") and one of them recalls a famous calling of the newspaper business: "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (Of course, I once drank the Kool-Aid and felt that way about journalism (and still do in many ways). My skills were in writing, in curiosity, in seeking truth and telling people about it. I felt like I could use my skills to make the country a better place in many ways, I really did (sniff). But his Party hates the media, so what I have to offer the country is useless, according to them. Cheers. And I digress.) That's McCain, though: unpredictable as ever.

Still, there were not enough specifics for my taste in tonight's speech (with the notable exception of the "doubling the child tax exemption from $3,500 to $7,000" and a few others), and too much of the GOP's old party lines.

Otherwise, I cannot dislike McCain. He is honorable. He has served and suffered. Yes, he is a hero. If it had to be a Republican the last eight years, why couldn't it have been him? In many ways I like him better than the bitter Pelosi and Reid in Congress. Not so much the very ambitious-sounding Palin (the third song played playing after McCain concluded his speech was Heart's "Barracuda," and McCain better what his back from someone who, gifted speaker as she is, clearly seems to like the spotlight — fine for the person at the top of the ticket, maybe not so much for the Veep, eh?).

(Minor point: I can't make that much of this, since I thought it was bullshit when it was called on Obama, but where was McCain's flag pin on his lapel? Granted, you can in no way question McCain's patriotism, but this only serves to point out the ridiculousness of questioning Obama's.)

(On the other hand, McCain needs to watch out for the ambitious Veep selection he's selected — talk about a pragmatic Gen X'er, grabbing the brass ring and not letting go!)

All that said, and like I said with Hillary, Obama is simply a better choice this time around. That's no dis on McCain (or Hillary, for that matter). Don't blame him. It's just his generation.
 

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Sorry about my progressive brethren bashing her speech tonight, and I agree with absolutely nothing she said (in fact, was enraged throughout with what she was saying, especially in mocking community organizers — has Sarah Palin ever been in a big city, ever shook the hands and cared for someone in an inner city setting?), but Obama-Biden have a real fight on their hands.

The Republicans do nothing better than fire up their base and encourage them to come out in overwhelming, angry numbers from those small towns I know so well. They do this much better than the Dems do in pulling in their own base (in a battle between bringing in college students vs. small-town residents on Election Day, never bet on the college students). Palin may get an "F" for content — frankly, she misrepresented Obama's position on taxes and there's a lot of talk about her late-coming opposition to the Alaskan bridge-to-nowhere — but I think Gov. Sarah Palin hit it out of the park as far as delivery. Sorry, but it's true.

You can hate everything she said, you can make fun of her accent or her sneers all you want, but she was probably the best speaker with the best delivery among the Republicans since the primaries began. I'd be worried about meeting her again on the national campaign trail in four or eight years.

I'm wondering how many voters from my own Generation X will swing toward McCain with a running mate from the 28- to 47-year-old set that was Raised on Reagan. Oh sure, all the people I know would never consider voting for him, no matter who he was running with. But that's a small, mostly urban-leaning segment of the population. My own generation, I still believe, is largely conservative.

And don't underestimate the Hockey Mom appeal — as Campbell Brown was saying a little while ago on CNN, that femininity, that "mom-ness" (for lack of a better word, and I'm paraphrasing here) carriers a lot of weight for many voters. (Brown later questioned Harry Reid's use of the word "shrill" to describe Palin's speech, noting that word is almost always used to describe a woman, not a man. That kind of response from Reid is not what Obama needs.)

And to take Brown's analysis a step further, there will be women, moms especially but feminists too, who will vote for McCain-with-Palin, even as Palin stands against everything they themselves stand for and have fought for, simply because they can connect with her. And, no, I am not talking about Hillary's former and still supporters. I'm talking about the fence-sitters.

Even Hillary connected with women as a Woman, but not necessarily as a Mom, not in the way that Palin I think just did, simply by dint of having more children to trot out onto a stage.

Finally, frankly, McCain is savvier than credit has been given him. By announcing the Veep pick as soon as the Democratic Convention was over, but not a minute sooner, he didn't let the Dems attack her during Prime Time Convention TV. But by also airing the family's pregnancy laundry publicly, he surely must have anticipated the media firestorm that would have resulted (there's unfortunately more focus on that than there has been over legitimate criticisms, such as her lack of experience, her back-and-forth on pork-barrel spending, and her husband's past connection to a secessionist movement; as always, sex sells in the public imagination; and there's also this.).

And, of course, a big enough media firestorm that they can (accurately or not) link to the Democrats against a defendable Republican (i.e., not Larry Craig) almost always produces a bitter, well-organized, how-dare-you, victimized backlash that brings out the loyal troops, picking up steam and on-the-fencers along the way. Well played, McCain.

This is a real fight, and if you don't believe me and underestimate this, then get ready for four years of McCain-Palin.

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Well, glad press freedom battles are limited to Vietnam, and would never happen in America, least of all in this 2008:

• Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC
• AP photog arrested while covering anti-war protest
• Update: Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC
• Call for withdrawal of charges against three journalists manhandled and arrested outside Republican Party convention

So glad to see our freedoms are protected here in America, because, you know, the world hates us for our freedoms and all that.
 
 
And while we're at it, stifling Freedom of the Press is not limited to violent means. John McCain's campaign has taken-its-ball-and-gone-home by canceling an appearance on Larry King's show because Campbell Brown at CNN had the nerve to ask some tough questions of a McCain spokesman.

Remember, this too is America:
 

 
and this:
 

 

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McCain's VP choice and her very public position on the Abortion debate aside, I have been uncomfortable with some aspects of the discussion over her teen daughter's pregnancy. While very relevant in light of Palin's anti-Choice politics, and relevant to the so-called Family Values debates and the moral high ground claimed by the Republicans, that's exactly where the line should be drawn and end. Does it mean the VP is a bad mom more focused on her career than her children? There's a lot to criticize Sarah Palin over, and I'm not sure I'm ready to level that as a criticism.

Now, does it relate to her anti-Choice politics and the general Republican theme that strong morals and a Family Values-style upbringing is the sole cure to curbing teenage pregnancy (and evidently all the other ills perpetrated by those godless liberals)? You bet it relates. But I almost want to wear kid gloves with her over this whole issue.

Perhaps it's that I know enough wonderful non-traditional families in which the children were born to a young mom, or to unmarried couples, or to adoptive parents (married or united). So as much as the debate relates to Palin and McCain — and even the quick statements from their campaigns that the young couple will wed makes me wonder if, in trying to show that the couple is "doing the right thing," they're also leveling a subtle insult to non-traditional families — I must admit to some discomfort over some of the criticism.

Now, on the other hand, her prior (though very recent) courtship of the Alaskan secessionists and her husband's enrollment in that party is more than fair game — the gloves come off for that one, and come off with a quickness. Talking Points Memo closes their recent post on this issue with this:

It's worth pondering how big a deal it would be if Obama had ever courted the support of a group whose head had said this kind of thing about America and her flag. Oh, wait...

And while we're on it, questions about the State Trooper scandal and her lobbyist's connections are also open to close public examination.
 

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