McCain gave a speech at the La Raza Hispanic convention in San Diego today. Instead of deriding Obama, he went out of his way to 
complement both him and Hillary. There’s nothing friendly about his aggressive foreign policy proposals, but it’s clear that McCain has brushed up his public speaking skills as well as his manners since the widely-panned “Not Change we Can Believe in” Green Speech. Good for him.
When the Democrats took control of both legislative chambers in 2006, I was unpleasantly surprised by the rapidity with which they caved into the Bush administration’s successful push for an endless occupation of Iraq. I will not discuss that mistake at present, other than to say that it 
is disappointing to watch dozens of legitimately and democratically-elected peoples’ representatives shirk their mandate and their convictions as a result of a daylong testimony by a pre-emptively deified military man (Gen. Petraeus). What I will argue is that Obama is falling into a similar trap, a trap conveniently set by a national discourse that continues to value the appearance of strength more than the safety, security, and consistency that come from rationality and common sense.
It is called the “Strong” fallacy, and it is what convinced Hillary Clinton to vote in support of the Iraq War five years ago. It was Obama’s common sense that allowed him to understand, back in 2003, the logical inconsistency of a “strong” national 
policy that leads your nation to war and ruin. To put it bluntly, Obama grasped the fact that it doesn’t matter how much you love your country, if you destroy it in the process.
Unfortunately, that stroke of common sense seems – like so many a college student this summer – to have gone on holiday. Consider these four recent examples:
What is least inspiring about the McCain candidacy is just to what extent McCain – unlike Obama – has been unable to mold the party establishment to his own image. Like Louis XIV, his opponent has wasted no time in relocating much of the DNC-aristocracy to the Windy City, swapping the splendors of Versailles for a little hard-balling, Chicago-style deputizing. By contrast, four months after becoming the party’s de facto nominee, McCain remains an outcast in the party that abandoned him for George in the 2000 race, and never quite embraced the shell of a man that came sulking back in the interim with new-found conservative sensibilities. At the moment, the contrast is blatant; whereas Obama has already begun to tone down the nefariously harsh rhetoric of the DNC’s e-mail-spouting publicity arm, McCain seems unwilling or unable to stem even the pettiest racial rhetoric sprouting in the republican grass roots.
Hillary’s website today lists her popular vote total as 17.41m, compared to 17.23m for Obama.
This is rubbish. Hillary’s two numbers do not include a single person from the following states:
…because in those states “party officials did not report any popular vote breakdown between the two candidates.” So much for voter enfranchisement. Obama won in all those states except Nevada.
Now, if only we could devise some ingenious method whereby we could compare the voter preferences of caucus states and ballot states. We could, for example, give each state a number of “points” based on its portion of the U.S. population (we could call these points “delegates”) and then divide each states “delegates” based on the portion of caucus or ballot goers that voted for each candidate. Then we could add up all the delegates and just compare them to see which candidate reflects voter preference! But this can never work because math is sexist.
Neo-Goric (ni’oh gor-ik) [adj, adv.]: A boneheaded proposal intended to suggest an individual’s propensity for self-sacrifice in the face of Global Warming, even in contradiction with, well-known, well-established, and well-regarded laws of natural or social science. Related to, but not to be confused with, correctly-alarmist Paleo-Goric rhetoric (see for example Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”).
This is not the first time I have taken issue with Thomas L. “Beat the Palestinians with a Stick” Friedman, but as he has crossed the thin line between normative political debate and economic axioms, I feel I could do worse than to point out the Neo-Goric blatherskite of his article yesterday in the NYT; I’ll give you a moment to read it over.
In particular, this gem:
Therefore, what our mythical candidate would be proposing, argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr., is a “price floor” for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.
In keeping with long-standing tradition, Friedman begins this rubbish by alluding to an economist, much as Hillary “I don’t think comparative advantage exists” Clinton began her adorable refutation of economics with a reference to Paul Samuelson (a Google search of “Hillary Buiter” produces a great article explaining why Samuelson is, indeed, a great economist – and why Hillary is not). I’ll reserve judgement on Mr. Verleger’s credentials for the time being (the results of an Internet search are not promising); let’s me just set the story straight.
There is a certain natural tendency to seek Karma in economics; as a result, it’s easy enough to tell people that fun things – like price ceilings on gasoline – will not be good in the long run, for the same reasons you cannot eat desert before you finish your dinner. We’re used to self-restraint in this department.
The problem is that economics is, at its core, is not a morality play; it has more to say than don’t do bad things. The problem with Friedman’s proposal is that price floors are just as damaging as price ceilings; instead of demand exceeding supply, you’ll have supply exceeding demand. The problem here (besides an unnecessary loss of income for your corner gas station owner) lies in incentives and information. Prices transmit information about the state of resources, as well as demand for them. If half of America switched to cars that were twice as efficient, all else being equal, we’d expect demand for gas to halve. But this is a good thing - it would lead to lower prices, lower emissions, and no market distortions. By proposing price floors, Friedman is treading a dangerous path towards price manipulation with ostensibly “moral goals.” This was tried in Central Eastern Europe, and it’ll take another thirty years for GDP per capita to catch up with its Western neighbors.
So cut it out, Friedman.
Clinton says she will not drop out because Obama might get assassinated.
Clinton was responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race.
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? [Hillary:] We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.
*(and great thanks to the Shakespearean Insulter for inspiration)
