Andy Kessler nyt
April 9, 2007, 5:53 pm
A Fork in the Road for Google
Whenever companies sue each other, my ears perk up. Not that I really care who wins, but lawsuits often showcase hidden vulnerabilities. Inevitably, as the fight plays out, the market thinks a lot differently about the long-term prospects of both parties, and money often sloshes away to play elsewhere.
The Internet has been all cute and cuddly throughout its childhood, given a pass for youthful indiscretions like stealing music and video clips. That just ended with Viacom’s copyright infringement suit against Google. By the time this lawsuit and others are finished, Google may have to change its way of doing business. That would be a shock.
Viacom, which owns cable channels like MTV and Comedy Central, recently charged Google with blatant copyright infringement for hosting 160,000 clips of Viacom shows and then having the audacity to allow bored workers and kids at home to be view them 1.5 billion times. Viacom had to sue to protect itself because, well, beneath the surface, Viacom and Google are both in the same business, selling ads. For all Google’s claims to be a technology company, 99 percent of its business is ads — for essentials like megapixel cameras, poker sites and ambulance-chasing asbestos lawyers.
TV attracts huge audiences with Orange County teens and Dr. McDreamies and, once our eyeballs are locked in, advertisers sell us things we’re not even sure we need. Like Budweiser Select, Dove Regenerating Hand Cream Night Care With Shea Butter and ever-less-desirable GM cars. Some $70 billion in TV advertising drives a $7 trillion consumer economy.
But TV is expensive. Shows that cost millions per week to produce may not turn profitable until they are syndicated for late-night reruns or DVD sales. It’s a tired business model ripe for change.
Megabit Internet access changes the rules by making videos available away from the controlled conduits of network TV and cable. This is scary for Viacom, because why would advertisers pay to run commercials on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” if folks can watch the show on YouTube? Proponents of YouTube claim Viacom should be happy about getting free publicity for “The Daily Show.” YouTube has a 10-minute limit on video length and claims it’s not copyright infringement, but fair use (a fuzzy loophole in copyright law). This may sound compelling, but it is nothing more than a fig leaf on piracy. Why? Because Viacom owns its programming and should get to pick where and when the shows are shown.
To remain viable, Viacom had to have its clips taken down from YouTube. In fact, all broadcasters must limit the reuse of their expensive material or their business model will implode. They must build and control their own Internet ad networks or risk going the way of trolley cars.
And Google? Internet advertising is growing like a weed. Google makes profits large enough to make Tony Soprano blush simply by scanning all the Internet pages the rest of us put up (which costs them very little), and returning the results with ads. The ads are meant to encourage impluse shopping: see it, want it, buy it, click and ship. So we click on 25-word text ads, and Google becomes a $140 billion valued behemoth. More valuable than Viacom or CBS. Hey, no one said life was fair.
But now suddenly video is cool. Sensing opportunity, the Google geek squad tried to build its own video-delivery service. It was put to shame by an 18-month-old company, YouTube, which Google then bought for $1.65 billion in shares of Google stock. By the way, in the terms of the deal, Google also set aside several hundred million dollars for potential lawsuits. Not enough as it turns out.
The success of YouTube has been nothing short of stunning. More than 100 million videos are watched every day, and probably 100,000 new clips are uploaded. So what if many of them have been highlights of “The Colbert Report” and “The Family Guy,” copyrighted material to which YouTube has no rights.
Suing YouTube as a private company only would have ruined a few venture capitalists’ tee times. Once Google, with pockets as deep as the Mariana Trench, bought YouTube, lawyers from coast to coast started salivating. Viacom is the first of many. I hear talk of giant class-action suits, for billions and billions. Maybe Viacom is thinking too small.
But here is Google’s dilemma. The company’s huge margins are the reason why it is valued at $140 billion on the stock market. If Google suddenly finds itself in a less profitable business because it has to pay for content, instead of just sponging off of SpongeBob, it could see its stock price fall faster than Katie Couric’s ratings.
Don’t get me wrong. The Internet will soon deliver all our video clips — sitcoms, sports, the whole shebang. But whoever creates and controls this content is who will make the big returns from it. Google is tops at search. It’s not yet obvious it will be tops in video. The game of lifting video clips made by others is almost over. If Google wants to stay in the game, it will need to ramp up its spending on video big time.
As consumers, I suspect, we’ll win, because we’ll have better shows delivered in new ways. But when companies start suing each other, investors should be careful. It usually means the game has changed for both sides.
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April 4, 2007, 4:57 pm
Sloshing
Left to their own devices, and couches, humans instinctively resist change. Kings and C.E.O.s like it at the top. Workers don’t volunteer to give up their jobs in the name of progress. Profits and productivity may create wealth, but how it gets into the right hands is another matter. Money doesn’t flow — that sounds so planned. It sloshes. There’s a difference. As scary as it sounds, it’s the chaos of markets that keeps us well fed and out of trouble.
You work, you get money. Congratulations. After covering bare essentials like food, shelter and a high-definition plasma TV, you save the rest. You can shove it in your mattress, but central bankers like our Federal Reserve, who haven’t the foggiest clue how much money is needed to run our economy, print more money every year. They target 2 percent inflation, which is another way of saying that they overprint dollars by 2 percent, diluting your worth. How rude. A 2-percent haircut by your very own government. Annoying, but it’s been going on forever. The Roman Emperors debased their coins from 4.5 grams of pure silver to less than a 10th of a gram over a few centuries. Stored wealth is an oxymoron.
Money wants to be invested, to generate returns. It not only wants to keep up with inflation so it doesn’t lose ground, it wants to help create wealth by funding the means of creating profits and then own a piece of those profits.
Liza Minelli insisted that money makes the world go around (along with that whole “life is a cabaret” nonsense), but it’s really the opposite: money goes around the world looking for profits — peeking in skyscrapers, factories, alleys, even gutters. Money sloshes around the globe seeking its highest returns, on a risk adjusted basis.
Money’s been sloshing around since creation (what’ll you give me for a rib?) in the form of gold and paper and now the online dollars and euros and yen of today that can make it from New York to Caracas in the blink of an eye.
You may not put your money to work, but someone else certainly will. Floors the size of football fields at brokerage firms and hedge funds are filled with traders and computer monitors blinking rapidly, sending money scurrying to the four corners looking for productive wealth-creating profits.
Chemicals in Copenhagen, a refinery in Russia and shoes in Shanghai all will attract capital if they can generate returns. No borders, no politics, no personalities; the only governor on funding is risk. Something may be rotten in Denmark, Putin may nationalize all energy companies, and maybe China’s baby teeth haven’t yet fallen out. Money may still slosh to these places, but it will fund only the very, very highest-return businesses. It’s why very little investment money ends up in Africa — the risks of poor infrastructure, undereducated workforces, corruption and a history of nationalization are so high that money just sloshes somewhere else. Lowering the risks is the only solution, or else money will stay away and not bother telling you why.
So here’s the dilemma for the United States. We all want money to stay local, to hire our workers and to invest in our own ideas and great companies. The trick is to have the best-looking prospects for profits along with the lowest risks. That’s what the stock market is for.
While money is a unit of work, a stock is nothing more than the sum of all future profits of a company (discounted back to the present for you persnickety sticklers). To raise money, you sell a share of those profits. You could convince your Uncle Ira to pony up some dough to help expand your ink company in Indiana or India. That counts as sloshing, sure. But how much of the company does he get, and how will he ever get his money back out? Not so obvious. Markets do this, for big enough companies anyway.
A stock exchange is nothing more than a busy room (or servers in Prague) that swaps shares around so that they end up in the right hands at the right price. The market values companies by valuing those future profits.
Markets put banks to shame — helping raise money in exchange for a share of the profits, rather than lending against some piece of collateral. Because it’s not only a company’s prospects that drives this action — the market changes its mind by the minute, worrying about economic growth, global stability, competition, technological change, politicians and every other worry you can imagine.
The stock market is the sum of what every investor in the world thinks. It doesn’t just listen to companies, it scours around for any information it can get to predict the future of profits — who is making them, how much, how good management is, and on and on. It’s daytime soap opera writ large. That’s why when Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, belches, markets erupt. The stock market allocates capital to companies that have what it believes are great prospects and starves those it no longer believes in.
There was once a great minicomputer company with Digital in its name. It was the leader in its field and had huge profit margins, was hiring people like crazy and in 1987 even hired the QE2 for a $20 million sales event in Boston. But over time, its stock kept going down. Wall Street analysts kept pounding the table, telling their clients to buy more shares. “The stock is cheap,” they repeated, “and profits are great.” The future was so bright they had to wear shades. There was no plausible explanation on why the stock was going down even though the outlook was so good.
What happened next was a decade-long decline, a drip, drip, drip of cutbacks and layoffs and plant closings and division sales as profits eroded. The C.E.O. was rightfully sacked. Minicomputers were slowly being displaced by workstations from Sun Microsystems and personal computers like Compaq’s, powered by Intel processors. In 1998, the once-pipsqueak PC maker Compaq used its highflying stock and cash to buy this company out, putting it out of its misery.
So it turned out the future wasn’t bright: The company was wearing blinders instead of shades. The stock market not only figured this out, but stopped the company from becoming an even bigger disaster. As money sloshed away and the stock declined, the market starved it of capital for growth, because better prospects were elsewhere.
No government bureaucrat had to raid that computer company’s offices and tell it to quit hiring and throwing lavish parties. The stock market did this. In Japan, where the stock market was rigged in the 1980s by cross ownership, and brokerage firms kept stock prices artificially high, operating losses at many Japanese companies were hidden under an accountant’s rug. The party went on and on until in 1991 it collapsed under its own weight, and Japan tread water through 15 years of turmoil and little growth.
We are lucky that Enron was not located in Tokyo, where it might have been deemed too big to fail. Good money might have been pumped in after bad to help Ken Lay-san stay afloat. Chrysler’s 1980 government bailout meant the stock market couldn’t do its job of starving a company that in retrospect should have been, as my veterinarian would say, put to sleep. GM and Ford would be in better shape today. Ditto airlines. Politics get in the way. What a shame.
O.K., enough of that. Want to find stocks that go up, that money will slosh towards? Me too! Here’s what works for me: Figure out what everyone else believes and then why they are wrong. Works every time. That should keep me and you busy for the rest of the month.
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April 2, 2007, 6:03 pm
It’s a Profit Deal
Needing relief from medieval churches and cutesy cafes on a trip to Prague a few years back (O.K., and a tax break), I paid a call on the Prague Stock Exchange, tucked in a blocky, Soviet-style building off the main drag. I climbed a few flights of poorly lit stairs and entered a dour, dusty-musty office. I didn’t expect John Thain clapping with happy C.E.O.s at the opening bell, but heck, this place might as well have been a D.M.V. I started pining for stained-glass windows again. Nonetheless, I learned more in the next 20 minutes about how the world works than I had in the last 20 years sweating on Wall Street as an analyst and running a hedge fund.
Back home, everything on Wall Street is beyond complex: Men in funny sports coats grunting and littering the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Dow Jones industrial averages rising and falling in seeming random correlations to sunspots or something. Million-dollar bonuses to traders younger than that Rolling Stones T-shirt in the back of your closet. Derivatives. Rate hikes. Credit swaps. Sub-prime loans. Discounted free cash flow. Man, this stuff is harder than Chinese arithmetic. I craved for a simple explanation on what it all meant. It was right in front of me.
There in the Prague office I spoke with a nice chain-smoking gentleman in an ill-fitting suit who was no doubt a district member of the Party a decade earlier. I quickly learned that, duh, there is no Prague Stock Exchange, not physically anyway. It’s just a bunch of computer servers sitting in a backroom that match trades all day. O.K., I get that. But how is it that the Czech Republic has stocks to trade in the first place? One day the government owns every business, bloated with beer-breath bureaucrats, and bleeding money if they ever bothered to check. And then one day, boom, the Berlin Wall falls, Prague is wrapped in Velvet, and the next, you have capitalism? Tricky transition.
Read more
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
George Orwell Bush
April 9, 2007, 9:20 am
The Professor’s Lost Luggage
Tags: Human Rights, National Security
Can you be placed on the government’s “terrorist watch list” for delivering an anti-Bush lecture? Walter F. Murphy, emeritus professor of law at Princeton, thinks that’s what happened to him. “On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, N.J., to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, “Constitutional Democracy,” published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving,” Murphy writes at the group legal blog Balkinization. “When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list.” Murphy adds:
I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. “That’ll do it,” the man said.
After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: “I must warn you, they=re [sic] going to ransack your luggage.” On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was “lost.” Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this “loss” could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical.
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22 comments so far...
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1.
April 9th,
2007
9:40 am
Welcome to the New World Order. Hail to the Chief, George Orwell Bush.
— Posted by Thomas
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2.
April 9th,
2007
11:17 am
So we see that the Enemies List is still alive and well in Washington. Shouldn’t an investigation be made to trace who in the bureaucracy was responsible for adding Professor Murphy’s name to the No-Fly List, if not to discharge them immediately then to make them take compulsory civics courses?
— Posted by Noah from New Jersey
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3.
April 9th,
2007
12:44 pm
Ultimately, I think you are distraught that they searched a professor who was on his way to give a lecture at Princeton.
If it had been a professor planning to give a lecture at Virginia Commonwealth University or at Howard University, … frankly, my dear, you wouldn’t have given a da*n.
— Posted by bowtie
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4.
April 9th,
2007
12:46 pm
Be afraid, be very afraid!
— Posted by Bradley
*
5.
April 9th,
2007
12:56 pm
How ironic.
Sam Alito’s mentor at Princeton.
Well, well, well……
— Posted by Paul '52
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6.
April 9th,
2007
1:10 pm
I agree with Noah from New Jersey that there should be an investigation to find out who else is on the No-Fly List because of peace activities and/or criticism of the current administration’s attempts to subvert the Constitution. The investigation should be open-ended, so that the investigators can look into whether other categories of non-terrorists have had problems.
— Posted by Connie
*
7.
April 9th,
2007
1:12 pm
Nothing is a surprise anymore. If it isn’t moronic policy, it’s gross incompetence - usually both. I suppose that calling for an investigation of how these no-fly lists are compiled would be stonewalled on the grounds that it would tip our hand to the terrorists.
— Posted by Bob Escutia
*
8.
April 9th,
2007
1:33 pm
I guess it’s no idea to plan a week in New York, visiting art museums/galleries and going to the MET?
— Posted by Bensimon7
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9.
April 9th,
2007
1:36 pm
I believe it was the airline staffers words “That’ll do it” that I find the most chilling here. Noah from NJ is bang on…. find this person or persons in DC but never mind the civics course, they wouldn’t understand it anyway. Time in a federal institution might help them and if that proved to be Gitmo, might even awaken them to the horror of their actions.
— Posted by David Smith
*
10.
April 9th,
2007
1:53 pm
Are the good citizens of this great country asleep? Is anyone really paying attention? Or do just sit back and say oh well, I will continue to shop circuit City..is it not problem.
Then one day we will all be Professor Murphys.
— Posted by Janeta Brown
*
11.
April 9th,
2007
1:53 pm
Has there been any journalistic investigation or reporting into this, or has this just been passed throughout the blogosphere? I am not doubting something like this could happen, just more the fact that no legitimate group has reported on this yet. This needs to be investigated.
— Posted by Thom
*
12.
April 9th,
2007
1:58 pm
Too bad this outrageous incident is buried in Times Select - it ought to be front page news!
— Posted by Deborah
*
13.
April 9th,
2007
3:02 pm
What happened to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly? Does the Bush Administration really think that terrorists would be marching in an anti-war protest and giving college lectures? Someone, please sue Bush.
— Posted by Helen NYC
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14.
April 9th,
2007
3:05 pm
Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims.
-Rabindranath Tagore
— Posted by Alex
*
15.
April 9th,
2007
3:15 pm
Now I’m afraid my name will be added to the No-Fly List because I’m adding a comment to this subversive blog!
— Posted by anonymous
*
16.
April 9th,
2007
4:07 pm
“Those who give up their freedoms for security, deserve neither!” Benjamin Franklin When are we going to take our country back and hold these power-hungry, fear-catalyzing, war-mongering (is there anything we don’t solve by ‘declaring war - drugs, poverty, immigration, terrorism,etc.) freedom-robbing, diversity-intollerant, economy-wrecking criminals accountable for how they’ve flushed what’s precious and worth fighting for down the toilet!
— Posted by Randy-mon
*
17.
April 9th,
2007
4:41 pm
“When they came to get me, there was no one left to defend me, or hear my plea………”
— Posted by Jim
*
18.
April 9th,
2007
4:47 pm
IMPEACH BUSH!
— Posted by DIANE Reed
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19.
April 9th,
2007
5:00 pm
There is a very serious First Amendment problem here. The chilling effect of being put on a terrorist watch list for that reason and of the consequences thereof work clearly to impede criticism of the constitutional error and breaches of this administration and other free speech as well. I suggest Mr. Murphy seek counsel.
— Posted by Kimball Corson
*
20.
April 9th,
2007
5:20 pm
For the sake of future presidents and future generations of Americans, Impeach Bush and Cheney. We’ll never be able to hold our heads up in an international meeting again if we let these two get away with all they’ve done.
— Posted by Gerald R. Slaney
*
21.
April 9th,
2007
5:31 pm
I have written G.W. Bush at least once a month since he hinted at going to war in Iraq. I told him a little of the British history in the 1920’s and called him what he is, an incipient fascist who lacksl curiosity and knowledge. However, I am not as of now on any no fly list, probably because I’m just a retired high school teacher instead of a renowned professor from Princeton.
I never thought I’d get more preferred treatment than the author.
— Posted by P.Abrams
*
22.
April 9th,
2007
5:58 pm
I am flabbergasted by Professor Murphy’s story. If true, it deserves the most widespread possible attention and a full Congressional investigation. But it first needs some backup to ensure that it is not “simply” an understandable misinterpretation.
— Posted by Barry Stein
The Professor’s Lost Luggage
Tags: Human Rights, National Security
Can you be placed on the government’s “terrorist watch list” for delivering an anti-Bush lecture? Walter F. Murphy, emeritus professor of law at Princeton, thinks that’s what happened to him. “On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, N.J., to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, “Constitutional Democracy,” published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving,” Murphy writes at the group legal blog Balkinization. “When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list.” Murphy adds:
I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. “That’ll do it,” the man said.
After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: “I must warn you, they=re [sic] going to ransack your luggage.” On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was “lost.” Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this “loss” could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical.
*
E-mail This
22 comments so far...
*
1.
April 9th,
2007
9:40 am
Welcome to the New World Order. Hail to the Chief, George Orwell Bush.
— Posted by Thomas
*
2.
April 9th,
2007
11:17 am
So we see that the Enemies List is still alive and well in Washington. Shouldn’t an investigation be made to trace who in the bureaucracy was responsible for adding Professor Murphy’s name to the No-Fly List, if not to discharge them immediately then to make them take compulsory civics courses?
— Posted by Noah from New Jersey
*
3.
April 9th,
2007
12:44 pm
Ultimately, I think you are distraught that they searched a professor who was on his way to give a lecture at Princeton.
If it had been a professor planning to give a lecture at Virginia Commonwealth University or at Howard University, … frankly, my dear, you wouldn’t have given a da*n.
— Posted by bowtie
*
4.
April 9th,
2007
12:46 pm
Be afraid, be very afraid!
— Posted by Bradley
*
5.
April 9th,
2007
12:56 pm
How ironic.
Sam Alito’s mentor at Princeton.
Well, well, well……
— Posted by Paul '52
*
6.
April 9th,
2007
1:10 pm
I agree with Noah from New Jersey that there should be an investigation to find out who else is on the No-Fly List because of peace activities and/or criticism of the current administration’s attempts to subvert the Constitution. The investigation should be open-ended, so that the investigators can look into whether other categories of non-terrorists have had problems.
— Posted by Connie
*
7.
April 9th,
2007
1:12 pm
Nothing is a surprise anymore. If it isn’t moronic policy, it’s gross incompetence - usually both. I suppose that calling for an investigation of how these no-fly lists are compiled would be stonewalled on the grounds that it would tip our hand to the terrorists.
— Posted by Bob Escutia
*
8.
April 9th,
2007
1:33 pm
I guess it’s no idea to plan a week in New York, visiting art museums/galleries and going to the MET?
— Posted by Bensimon7
*
9.
April 9th,
2007
1:36 pm
I believe it was the airline staffers words “That’ll do it” that I find the most chilling here. Noah from NJ is bang on…. find this person or persons in DC but never mind the civics course, they wouldn’t understand it anyway. Time in a federal institution might help them and if that proved to be Gitmo, might even awaken them to the horror of their actions.
— Posted by David Smith
*
10.
April 9th,
2007
1:53 pm
Are the good citizens of this great country asleep? Is anyone really paying attention? Or do just sit back and say oh well, I will continue to shop circuit City..is it not problem.
Then one day we will all be Professor Murphys.
— Posted by Janeta Brown
*
11.
April 9th,
2007
1:53 pm
Has there been any journalistic investigation or reporting into this, or has this just been passed throughout the blogosphere? I am not doubting something like this could happen, just more the fact that no legitimate group has reported on this yet. This needs to be investigated.
— Posted by Thom
*
12.
April 9th,
2007
1:58 pm
Too bad this outrageous incident is buried in Times Select - it ought to be front page news!
— Posted by Deborah
*
13.
April 9th,
2007
3:02 pm
What happened to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly? Does the Bush Administration really think that terrorists would be marching in an anti-war protest and giving college lectures? Someone, please sue Bush.
— Posted by Helen NYC
*
14.
April 9th,
2007
3:05 pm
Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims.
-Rabindranath Tagore
— Posted by Alex
*
15.
April 9th,
2007
3:15 pm
Now I’m afraid my name will be added to the No-Fly List because I’m adding a comment to this subversive blog!
— Posted by anonymous
*
16.
April 9th,
2007
4:07 pm
“Those who give up their freedoms for security, deserve neither!” Benjamin Franklin When are we going to take our country back and hold these power-hungry, fear-catalyzing, war-mongering (is there anything we don’t solve by ‘declaring war - drugs, poverty, immigration, terrorism,etc.) freedom-robbing, diversity-intollerant, economy-wrecking criminals accountable for how they’ve flushed what’s precious and worth fighting for down the toilet!
— Posted by Randy-mon
*
17.
April 9th,
2007
4:41 pm
“When they came to get me, there was no one left to defend me, or hear my plea………”
— Posted by Jim
*
18.
April 9th,
2007
4:47 pm
IMPEACH BUSH!
— Posted by DIANE Reed
*
19.
April 9th,
2007
5:00 pm
There is a very serious First Amendment problem here. The chilling effect of being put on a terrorist watch list for that reason and of the consequences thereof work clearly to impede criticism of the constitutional error and breaches of this administration and other free speech as well. I suggest Mr. Murphy seek counsel.
— Posted by Kimball Corson
*
20.
April 9th,
2007
5:20 pm
For the sake of future presidents and future generations of Americans, Impeach Bush and Cheney. We’ll never be able to hold our heads up in an international meeting again if we let these two get away with all they’ve done.
— Posted by Gerald R. Slaney
*
21.
April 9th,
2007
5:31 pm
I have written G.W. Bush at least once a month since he hinted at going to war in Iraq. I told him a little of the British history in the 1920’s and called him what he is, an incipient fascist who lacksl curiosity and knowledge. However, I am not as of now on any no fly list, probably because I’m just a retired high school teacher instead of a renowned professor from Princeton.
I never thought I’d get more preferred treatment than the author.
— Posted by P.Abrams
*
22.
April 9th,
2007
5:58 pm
I am flabbergasted by Professor Murphy’s story. If true, it deserves the most widespread possible attention and a full Congressional investigation. But it first needs some backup to ensure that it is not “simply” an understandable misinterpretation.
— Posted by Barry Stein
choosing the party
Stanley Fish
April 8, 2007, 9:12 pm
Parties Matter
The political polling season is already upon us (a bit prematurely, but everything is ahead of itself these days), and polls taken in the past couple of weeks reveal a pattern that commentators are busy explaining. When the question asked is, which party do you trust to do a better job with the economy, the war, global warming, the environment, education, the deficit, immigration, reputation abroad, the administration of justice, the rebuilding of New Orleans?, the Democratic party wins — and in some categories by impressive margins. The same polls show that 60 to 70 percent of the American people believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, and there is no doubt that President Bush’s rating numbers are also headed in the wrong direction. Why then do Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama consistently lose to Rudy Giuliani and John McCain in head-to-head matchups? (The three Democrats do outpoll Mitt Romney, but who wouldn’t?)
The answer usually given is that it’s early. Two years out voters are reacting to personalities, or rather, to their perception of personalities. When things get more serious, and the candidates are put under the lens of relentless scrutiny and have to answer hard questions about hard issues, the ratings, we are told, will turn less on personality and more on policy, and the numbers will change.
Maybe so, but I suspect that in 18 months the personality profiles now given to us by the media will still be in place and remain the focus of political commentary. We’ll still have Giuliani, the stalwart 9/11 hero and crime-fighting mayor (a little tainted by Bernard Kerik and the messiest personal life this side of Britney Spears); John McCain, the stalwart Vietnam War hero and straight shooter (a little tainted by claims that Baghdad is a nice town for an afternoon stroll); Hillary Clinton, the smart, well-organized, effective senator (a little burdened by baggage she is unlikely ever to shed); Barack Obama, the charismatic, eloquent harbinger of a new day (a little suspect because the glittering facade seems unaccompanied by even one substantive idea); and John Edwards, the up-from-poverty trial lawyer and former senator with an inspiring wife (a little defensive when he is asked why a self-advertised candidate of the people has recently built himself a mansion.) When September 2008 rolls around, two of these characters – or perhaps a dark horse drawn from the current list of Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson and Newt Gingrich – will be paraded before the citizenry, which will be asked (endlessly), “Whom would you rather have running the country, protecting our troops, educating our children, and throwing out the first ball on opening day?
It is the wrong question. The right question is “Whom would you rather have exercising the power of appointment?” That’s not a sexy question, but it gets to the heart of what electing a president means. It means that within a few weeks of his or her inauguration, different people will be administering and guiding the nation’s key institutions. In the past several elections there has been some attention paid to Supreme Court appointments and the difference that would supposedly be made by the elevation to the court of a liberal or conservative jurist. But Supreme Court vacancies are like papal elections – they don’t come around very often, and you can’t sit around waiting for them to occur. Meanwhile the day-to-day business of governing has to be done, and the people who will do it will be the people the president appoints.
From that fact follows a strategy I would recommend to the Democrats, who seem to believe that they will win in ’08 simply because the Bush presidency has imploded: Run against the other party – not against its candidate or the sitting president (although you should do a little bit of that too), but against what the other party usually does when it gets into office. What it does (based on the record of the past six years) is appoint cabinet members and ambassadors who are either jokes, incompetent cronies or malign subverters of the Constitution.
President Bush has had two attorn
April 8, 2007, 9:12 pm
Parties Matter
The political polling season is already upon us (a bit prematurely, but everything is ahead of itself these days), and polls taken in the past couple of weeks reveal a pattern that commentators are busy explaining. When the question asked is, which party do you trust to do a better job with the economy, the war, global warming, the environment, education, the deficit, immigration, reputation abroad, the administration of justice, the rebuilding of New Orleans?, the Democratic party wins — and in some categories by impressive margins. The same polls show that 60 to 70 percent of the American people believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, and there is no doubt that President Bush’s rating numbers are also headed in the wrong direction. Why then do Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama consistently lose to Rudy Giuliani and John McCain in head-to-head matchups? (The three Democrats do outpoll Mitt Romney, but who wouldn’t?)
The answer usually given is that it’s early. Two years out voters are reacting to personalities, or rather, to their perception of personalities. When things get more serious, and the candidates are put under the lens of relentless scrutiny and have to answer hard questions about hard issues, the ratings, we are told, will turn less on personality and more on policy, and the numbers will change.
Maybe so, but I suspect that in 18 months the personality profiles now given to us by the media will still be in place and remain the focus of political commentary. We’ll still have Giuliani, the stalwart 9/11 hero and crime-fighting mayor (a little tainted by Bernard Kerik and the messiest personal life this side of Britney Spears); John McCain, the stalwart Vietnam War hero and straight shooter (a little tainted by claims that Baghdad is a nice town for an afternoon stroll); Hillary Clinton, the smart, well-organized, effective senator (a little burdened by baggage she is unlikely ever to shed); Barack Obama, the charismatic, eloquent harbinger of a new day (a little suspect because the glittering facade seems unaccompanied by even one substantive idea); and John Edwards, the up-from-poverty trial lawyer and former senator with an inspiring wife (a little defensive when he is asked why a self-advertised candidate of the people has recently built himself a mansion.) When September 2008 rolls around, two of these characters – or perhaps a dark horse drawn from the current list of Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson and Newt Gingrich – will be paraded before the citizenry, which will be asked (endlessly), “Whom would you rather have running the country, protecting our troops, educating our children, and throwing out the first ball on opening day?
It is the wrong question. The right question is “Whom would you rather have exercising the power of appointment?” That’s not a sexy question, but it gets to the heart of what electing a president means. It means that within a few weeks of his or her inauguration, different people will be administering and guiding the nation’s key institutions. In the past several elections there has been some attention paid to Supreme Court appointments and the difference that would supposedly be made by the elevation to the court of a liberal or conservative jurist. But Supreme Court vacancies are like papal elections – they don’t come around very often, and you can’t sit around waiting for them to occur. Meanwhile the day-to-day business of governing has to be done, and the people who will do it will be the people the president appoints.
From that fact follows a strategy I would recommend to the Democrats, who seem to believe that they will win in ’08 simply because the Bush presidency has imploded: Run against the other party – not against its candidate or the sitting president (although you should do a little bit of that too), but against what the other party usually does when it gets into office. What it does (based on the record of the past six years) is appoint cabinet members and ambassadors who are either jokes, incompetent cronies or malign subverters of the Constitution.
President Bush has had two attorn
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