Sullivan Issues a Retraction!--Updated!

Just not about the topic you think.

This morning Sullivan posted (on The Atlantic's website) an item attacking his Atlantic colleague Ross Douthat and raising factual questions about Sarah Palin and her family:

Ross Douthat tells us he is very comfortable with outright lies in politics. In fact, it is so faux to care about truth in politics (but never faux to display outrage at journalists asking factual questions about Palin's stories about her own family). He couldn't get worked up about Clinton's lies either, he tells us. Why? Because the ends always justify the means. If you're going to ban all abortion, you just have to tell a few whoppers and demonize a few opponents along the way:

The point of being in national politics is to win elections and govern the country in accordance with whatever goals led you into the arena in the first place, not to please columnists who disagree with you on ideological grounds but appreciate a finely-tuned sense of political principle.

It's really come to this? Notice the avoidance of what is at stake here: the basic question of truth: empirical, checkable, verifiable truth. How naive to care about that.

Pretty amazing stuff, no? Sullivan is walking as close up to the line as he can on the parentage of Trig Palin without actually having the stones to say so out loud. Look at that phrase: "asking factual questions about Palin's stories about her own family."

Someone, perhaps one of his Atlantic colleagues, should ask Sullivan to clarify exactly what factual question about Palin's family he is referring to.

Remember that the only "factual" question about Palin's family that Sullivan had previously asked was whether or not Trig Palin was Sarah Palin's son. Unless he has a new, unarticulated question, it seems reasonable to assume that that's what he's still talking about. Irrespective of whatever arrangement he came to with David Bradley and the management of The Atlantic.

But wait! I promised you a retraction! Did Sullivan take back this barely-veiled attempt to question the parentage of Trig Palin? No.

In an item originally posted here Sullivan went after Douthat again, saying, "Mitt Romney calls McCain's and Palin's lies 'wrong and reprehensible' and a 'massive mistake.' So Mitt is now more concerned about basic levels of honesty in the McCain campaign than Ross Douthat. Yes, Ross is now officially more cynical than Mitt Romney."

Upon having it pointed out that the Romney video dates back to the primary season, Sullivan removed the post in its entirety and issued a correction. (Though not an apology to Douthat.)

This seems like an important development.

Because it proves that when Sullivan and That Atlantic believe that he has made an error, The Atlantic's policy includes not only explicit acknowledgment of the error, but also wholesale retraction of the item.

The fact that Sullivan's posts about Trig and Sarah Palin (here, here, here, and here) remain published must be an indication that the magazine and David Bradley are standing by Sullivan's writing on the subject.

Shouldn't Howard Kurtz ask Bradley why that is?

Update: Ace notes Sullivan's further insinuations. And Victor Davis Hanson finally goads Sullivan into breaking his omerta on the subject of Trig Palin. Here Sullivan is, speaking for The Atlantic Monthly:

As for blog "rumors" about a Down Syndrome pregnancy, all this blog has done is ask for facts and context about a subject that the Palin campaign has put at the center of its message, facts about a baby held up at a convention as a political symbol for the pro-life movement, and cited in Palin's acceptance speech. You do that, you invite questions about it. I make absolutely no apologies for doing my job.

I find the account of her pregnancy and labor provided by Palin to be perplexing, to put it mildly, and I have every right to ask questions about it, especially since we have discovered that this woman lies more compulsively and less intelligently than the Clintons. . . . And in the absence of any information from the Palin campaign, I have aired every possible view trying to explain it. What else am I supposed to do? Pretend these questions don't exist? Pretend her story makes sense to me? I owe my readers my honest opinion. That's not rumor-mongering, it's fulfilling my core commitment to my readers. . . .

All my factual questions of more than two weeks ago, moreover, remain unanswered by the McCain campaign. They are all factual questions demanding simple factual answers that any campaign that wasn't bent on deceit and lies would be more than eager and perfectly able to provide.

Why haven't they? When will they?

Well there we have it. Andrew Sullivan is once again openly using The Atlantic as a platform to demand that Sarah Palin "prove" that she is mother of her youngest child.

It is a disgrace for the magazine and everyone associated with it. One hundred and fifty years of storied history set ablaze in fortnight by a single writer.

Since dissent is obviously tolerated at The Atlantic (see above) at what point to other staffers at the magazine have a duty to publicly and explicitly disavow Sullivan?

Update 2: Is the great Jeff Goldberg moving in that direction, using Jill Greenberg in personas Sullivanas? Here's Goldberg writing about Greenberg. His comments seem eerily--perhaps not accidentally--applicable to Sullivan:

I don't know Greenberg (I count this as a blessing) and I can add nothing to what James Bennet told the Post except to say that Greenberg is quite obviously an indecent person who should not be working in magazine journalism. Every so often, journalists become deranged at the sight of certain candidates, and lose their bearings. Why, this has even happened in the case of John McCain once or twice. What I find truly astonishing is the blithe way in which she has tried to hurt this magazine.

Update 3: A blogger named Alex Massie who says that he once guest-blogged for Sullivan has spoken out about Sullivan's continued smearing of Trig and Sarah Palin.

I'm sympathetic to Massie's complaint, which is that Sullivan's sustained questioning of Trig's parentage is doing terrible damage to a valuable intellectual institution. But Massie misses the larger point: The institution in need of protection here isn't Andrew Sullivan's blog--it's The Atlantic Monthly.

I can't emphasize this enough: There is nothing especially note-worthy about a blogger repeating unsubstantiated smears about a politician's personal life. Troll around enough websites and you'll see plenty of it from the left and the right. You'll recall the right-wing nutters who thought that the Clintons ran cocaine shipments out of an airstrip in Mena and were responsible for the deaths of Ron Brown and Vince Foster. (They were just asking question about the Mena airstrip, mind you.) So this sort of dirty pool is nothing new or remarkable.

What is noteworthy is that Sullivan has injected this sort of behavior into a once-great magazine that's been at the forefront of American letters for 150 years. Institutions matter more--much more--than people.

Andrew Sullivan should be allowed to write whatever he wants about Trig and Sarah Palin. That's not a scandal. The scandal is that The Atlantic is allowing him to write these things under their name.

And as a remind of what sort of things Sullivan is saying from his platform at The Atlantic, here's his response to Massie:

Alex Massie is disappointed by my relentless vetting of Palin, specifically the bizarre facts in the public record about her fifth pregnancy. For my part, I stand by my skepticism of everything Sarah Palin says. [emphasis in original] . . .

[M]y working assumption now is that she is a pathological liar--even about things that are objectively checkable.

A pathological liar simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth about herself, even on a subject as routine as a pregnancy and infant son. I can't believe I'm asking these questions either. But in the absence of any answers, what am I supposed to do?

I know this puts me out of the mainstream of acceptable Washington opinion. But let me just remind Alex that doubting the existence of Saddam's WMDs put some people out of the mainstream of acceptable Washington opinion. Would the world be a better place if those people had refused to be silenced or intimidated?

That's right: The Atlantic is now comparing rumor-mongering about Trig Palin's parentage to the multi-national intelligence gathering operation about Iraq's nuclear and biological weapons capability.

David Bradley shouldn't try to "silence" Sullivan; he should simply disentangle his magazine from him.

"Mr. Sullivan, did you order the Code Red?"

Pursuant to last week's discussion about Andrew Sullivan's shifting opinion on whether or not Sarah Palin is Trig Palin's mother (all being done under the aegis of The Atlantic), it seems that Sullivan, having issued a brief forced sounding post saying that Gov. Palin had, in fact, been pregnant with Trig, now seems to be trying to coyly contradict that pose as often as he deems practicable.

To wit, Sullivan first claimed that Palin's ABC interview provided grounds for the media (including, presumably, David Bradley's Atlantic) to investigate everything about her entire life. Here's Sullivan, "She has therefore pulled a Gary Hart in inviting the press to examine her life in full." More:

when you agree to run for vice-president of the United States, you surrender any zone of privacy. Al Gore's sometimes wayward son; Dick Cheney's daughter and now granddaughter; Dan Quayle's wife; George H. W. Bush's extensive clan: all these families have been an "open book" to the press. . . .

The Edwards story - showing stunning recklessness in a potential president - legitimized the reporting of the National Enquirer, and made their reporting in this news cycle legit. And the story - subsequently reported and endorsed in the New York Times and every mainstream media source - was less relevant to public life than Palin's. Because by the time the story broke, Edwards was out of the race. Palin is not just in the race, she's ahead - and we have six weeks to go. It is, I'd argue, the duty of the press and the blogosphere to ask any factual and fair questions to which there can be clear and factual answers. . . .

In 2008, in mid-September, we are not even allowed to ask questions about Palin's real and actual life as a mother-as-governor? That notion is as absurd as the Palin candidacy itself, in my judgment.

Of open books, any sincere and legitimate factual question is askable. . . .

Sullivan never actually spells out which factual and answerable question, in specific, he's driving at. But I think we can make a fair inference. Here's the kicker:

It seems to me that if you are on record saying that your life is an open book, and you have a state-run web-page about your infant son, and your own children's travel is paid for by the state, and you presented your infant son at a convention televised across the entire world, and you sent out a press release outing your own daughter's current pregnancy, then it is not despicable, evil, vile or outrageous for the press to ask factual, answerable questions about Sarah Palin's experiences as a pregnant and non-pregnant mother and about her marriage and about her parenting of her children.

Hmmmm. I wonder what he means by "non-pregnant"? It's a term I haven't seen used before. Perhaps David Bradley knows?

Just for good measure, Sullivan later notes:

Now I begin to understand the intimidation I have been subjected to for simply asking questions. All I can reassure my readers is: I'm now more determined than ever to reveal the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this dangerous, vindictive Christianist cipher being foisted on the United States.

Shouldn't someone ask Sullivan exactly what the factual, answerable question about Sarah Palin is that he's determined to reveal the truth of?

It's almost as if he's speaking elliptically in order to hold to the letter of some agreement with someone about a some subject which he isn't supposed to write about . . .

Andrew Sullivan's Quotes

So other people are noticing it, too: Something happened earlier this week with Sullivan. He stopped writing without notice. Then mysteriously reversed his position on the parentage of Trig Palin, without explanation or retraction of his earlier insistence that there was no reason to believe for certain that Trig was Sarah Palin's son.

And throughout all of this, Sullivan has been posting "Quotes of the Day" which seemed designed to function as a sort of Greek Chorus. During his period of radio silence, he posted the German "About which one cannot speak, one must be silent."

Today he publishes a quote reading, "It may be false. It may be true. But nothing has been proved."

For whatever reason, Sullivan seems to have backed away from smearing Sarah Palin, but his heart just doesn't seem to be in it. He's like Col. Nathan Jessep, just dying to tell us exactly who ordered the code red.

Update: Galley Friend Dean Barnett makes a fairly important point:

[The left] smeared Sarah Palin with a host of - um - imaginative charges like she wore a fat suit to fake a pregnancy that had actually visited itself upon her daughter. Even the chief disseminator of that rumor from his perch at the Atlantic has since bethought himself of that smear, publicly crediting Palin for bringing her fifth child to term on Wednesday (although of course neither admitting error nor apologizing for his role in spreading the rumor).

If Sullivan and The Atlantic are now walking back from their charge--and don't get me wrong, this is a good thing--don't they need to issue either an explanation or a retraction of the earlier stuff? Otherwise, how are we to know which is the real position?

Has Andrew Sullivan Been Muzzled by The Atlantic?

So it appears that Sullivan's earlier claim that no one is telling him what he can and can't write about might not be strictly true. He now posts a "quote of the day" which translates to roughly "About which one cannot speak, one must be silent."

This suggests that Sullivan has been in some way disciplined by management at The Atlantic. Surely this is enough to interest a mainstream media reporter? Right?

Seriously, is there a more interesting media story out there right now than one of the nation's oldest journals having an internal dispute over a staffer's writing, causing said staffer to temporarily cease work, and then post a barely-veiled dissent?

Oh, well, maybe there is. But still! America's media beat writers must be able to fight two conflicts simultaneously! If they can't, they're just daring rogue journalists to behave badly . . .

Update: The great Ace is all over this, with a comment from a tipster who claims to work at The Atlantic. (Ace has no idea if the tipster is genuine, fyi.)

Update 2: Sullivan seems to be back posting at The Atlantic, but has yet to mention Sarah Palin. I'm sure some industrious reader could tell me how many times he's posted about her since her nomination. We can then see how long he goes until mentioning her again.

Update 3: Big news! Sullivan is back on the Trig Palin story and he must have uncovered some new evidence, because he's now certain that Trig is Sarah Palin's child:

Say all you want about Sarah Palin's non-existent record on foreign policy, series of public lies, non-existent vetting and absurd, unprecedented shielding from the press. At least we know this for sure: she went through the psychological, emotional and spiritual test of eight months of pregnancy and a painful, difficult, endless labor for a cause she believes in.

Did he get a gander at the hospital records during his time out off?

Andrew Sullivan and The Atlantic, cont. and Updated!

Following last week's meltdown, Andrew Sullivan floated another unfounded smear against Sarah Palin from his perch over at The Atlantic over the weekend. Dean Barnett has the rundown.

Even MSNBC is reevaluating its HR decisions. Shouldn't David Bradley be doing the same? How long does it take to tear down a century-old reputation?

Update: Galley Friend A.W. sends in another example of Sullivan's shoddy reporting/analysis. Here's A.W.:

Sullivan, referring to "Troopergate," links to an ABC News video and concludes, "Palin clearly lied."

But if you watch the video, you find two things:

(1) Accusations from the fired state official that he believes he was fired because of the brother-in-law; and

(2) Audio recordings that literally include no reference to Palin intending to fire the police commissioner.

It's funny that Sullivan would call this, in effect, a "slam dunk." There's no evidence there! And Sullivan never hesitates to (1) bemoan the Bush administration's reliance on thin evidence in the run-up to the war, or (2) remind us all that "true" conservatives are skeptics.

Update 2: A little Kremlinology: So last night Sullivan posts what reads like a semi-CYA post saying that he really does admire Sarah Palin quite a lot.* Then he posts a nonsensical bit about the NYT Trig Palin story, which somehow suggests that the story was an "exposé" (as per Drudge's promise). (The story wasn't, by-the-by.)

And since then: silence. Well, not total silence, just one wordless picture out a window. People have been emailing me all afternoon speculating that management over at the National Journal group may be dealing with the Sullivan problem in some way. My guess is that he's just in transit somewhere. We'll see.

* A close reading of that semi-endorsement of Palin, however, shows that Sullivan is still peddling the smear that Trig isn't the governor's baby. Look very carefully at Sullivan's wording. He says, "I want to go on record again as saying that the decision to bring up a child with Down Syndrome is one of the most noble, beautiful and admirable decisions any person can make. That Sarah Palin is doing that says a huge amount in favor of her." [emphasis added]

Is it coincidence that Sullivan merely credits Palin with "bringing up" the baby, instead of, you know, "bearing him" or "having him" or "giving birth to him"? I don't think so. It seems pretty clear that even as late as last night, Sullivan was still hinting to readers of The Atlantic that Palin's youngest child isn't actually hers.

Update 3: Other writers for The Atlantic are beginning to address the question of Sullivan's disappearance. Ta-Nehisi Coates has now forbidden commenters from speculating about Sullivan, saying, "Frankly, I have no clue what the situation is--and neither do you."

That sounds kind of ominous. Marc Ambinder says "Lots of e-mails asking about Andrew's whereabouts. I checked in with him; he's fine. He's taking a few days off."

Does this mean that David Bradley has finally stepped in to take control of his magazine? Doesn't this, finally, serve as enough of a hook to get some media reporters to start making phone calls?

Update 4: More speculation. It would be nice to have some actual reporting, though. Romenesko? Kurtz? Anyone?

Update 5: Sullivan speaks! "I'm absolutely fine, nothing has changed with this blog, no one is pressuring me to write or not write anything . . ." Not quite a total denial that there is some friction with management. After all, he'd be free to write anything he wanted at andrewsullivan.com--and he could do it without embarrassing The Atlantic Monthly.

Why They Hate Her

I hate to be so stuck on politics, but I've been on the road for two weeks at the conventions so it's kind of what's in front of me.

To that end, I've done a little item for First Things trying to explore what it is about Sarah Palin that has so enraged the left, "Why They Hate Her."

Not to worry, though. The Dark Knight will come out on Blu-Ray some time in February and this site will then revert to its previous all-Dark Knight, all-the-time incarnation. I'm sure you're counting down the minutes . . .

The Atlantic Becomes a Laughingstock--Updated--Again, and Bumped--with Final Convention Post

Note: I'm just going to keep updating this thread, so keep checking back.

Double Note: I'm moving what was the final post up to the top, as it seems to be more useful as an into to this discussion, rather than a footer. Here it is:

Final Update of Convention Week: Believe me, I'm more relieved about that than you are. A friend sends along an email with this link and the subject header "Why David Bradley Doesn't Care." I'll spare you the click: It's Sullivan informing readers that his site has gotten 2 million views over the last two days.

So perhaps I should make a little more explicit why I've been so worked up about this whole thing.

I have no particular aversion to the smearing of political figures; or rather, no aversion greater than that of the average reasonable person. I find it ugly and distasteful, but I realize that it's part of the rough and tumble of politics. It has always happened. It will continue to happen. That's why you'll note that I haven't written a single word about what sites such as Daily Kos, Democrats.com, or Democratic Underground have said about her.

And I hold no particular brief for Sarah Palin, per se. As I've written elsewhere, there are reasonable criticisms of her both as a governor and as a vice presidential candidate. I don't think anything I've written about her would count as boosterism. (Although I do make the case that she was the best strategic pick available to McCain, as an analytical matter.)

What's caught my attention here, then is The Atlantic. I am, and always have been, an enormous booster for the Old Media, and smarty-pants general-interest magazines in particular. What's so notable in this whole affair isn't the tarring of Palin but the fact that The Atlantic Monthly is the vehicle for the irresponsible spreading of smears about Palin and speculation so inane that it can't be counted, by any reasonable measure, as analysis. (Here, I'm thinking of Sullivan's claim that he thought it possible both Palin and McCain would relinquish their nominations.)

If Andrew Sullivan were to have written everything he wrote this week at his own website, I wouldn't have said a word about it. The real scandal here isn't Sullivan: It's what The Atlantic has become by publishing him.

As for Sullivan's page views, I sincerely hope that David Bradley isn't making his editorial decisions based solely on eyeballs and dollars. Were that so, you could simply give The Atlantic's pages over to Perez Hilton or Slashdot or Matt Drudge or any other number of content formats. But the point of The Atlantic, like other great journals, is to be something different--to be a stage in the world of ideas, even if it's not the most profitable thing.

I find the prospect of The Atlantic devolving into some version of Free Republic or Daily Kos to be immensely worrisome. Hopefully David Bradley will do something to put his house in order. Soon.

Now back to the original thread.

After demanding that he be allowed to inspect Trig Palin's placenta all day yesterday, Andrew Sullivan is now suggesting that he thinks John McCain might withdraw from the election.

Yes, that's right. There's some serious political analysis from one of the nation's most prestigious general interest magazines.

I wonder what the other folks on the masthead think about having their credibility linked with Sullivan's.

Update 1: National Review, another of America's venerable journals, tries to save The Atlantic from Sullivan:

Once a respectable journalist, The Atlantic’s self-declared champion of respect for privacy and of civil discourse now obsesses over Miss Palin, airing baseless and abhorrent questions about the motherhood of Trig, Gov. Palin’s infant son, born this year with Down syndrome. One wonders if David Bradley bought The Atlantic — a venerable institution that once published Mark Twain and Martin Luther King — so that he could associate it with the most despicable ravings of the left-wing blogosphere. What price in reputation is Bradley willing to pay for increased unique-visitor numbers from among the fever swamps?

Sullivan has become a media story in himself. Howard Kurtz and Jim Romenesko should be taking note. There's dissension in the ranks at The Atlantic. Surely this is worth a reporter's call to David Bradley to ask if he stands by Sullivan?

Update 2: Ross Douthat courageously breaks into open warfare against Sullivan:

I think the coverage of Sarah Palin to date - by colleagues I used to respect and publications I normally admire - at least partially vindicates this theory about the reception that would greet the kind of GOP I'd like to see.

Other Atlantic colleagues seem close to doing the same. As I said above, Sullivan's coverage of Palin is becoming a media story in itself. Someone--Jack Shafer, Howard Kurtz, E&P, the NY Observer--should start poking around The Atlantic to see if Sullivan's tenure is sustainable.

Update 3: A friend writes in to ask whether or not the Sullivan taint really does spread to the magazine, since he is, after all, just a blogger. I'd argue that having "The Atlantic" in giant letters at the top of every one of his posts is pretty damaging to the brand. But then there's also this:



Sullivan's reaction to Palin puts his gushing cover story on Obama in an entirely new light. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Neither view is good for The Atlantic.

Update 4: Sullivan continues to demand to know the "details" of Trig's birth. And now he has new justification: Because Trig was present at the convention. Here he his, mere moments into Palin's speech:

Brandishing a Down Syndrome child as a campaign statement is daring the press to ask questions about him. And if you are going to hold the baby in front of the cameras, how can you say that the details of his birth cannot even be discussed?

Yes, we're now six days after Palin's announcement and Sullivan is still insinuating that Trig Palin is not Sarah Palin's child on the web-pages of The Atlantic Monthly.

Update 5: Ace of Spades finds another bit of Trig Palin obsessing from Sullivan. He also gets that Sullivan is single-handedly destroying the reputation of The Atlantic.

Update 6: Now Sullivan responds to Ross Douthat, meaning we have an open, ongoing conflict between writers at The Atlantic.

Update 7: Reason takes note.

Geeks on Parade

So hot.

Dr. Horrible, Culture 11

A brief piece on Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible over at the new, and very excellent, Culture 11.

There will not be a quiz.

Andrew Sullivan, Updated--Again--And Again

Re-posted 8/31/2008, 11:30 p.m.

Original post: 8/29/2008, 1:29 p.m.: I don't mean to harp, but it took him only moments to make fun of Sarah Palin's kids' names.

What's the over-under on how long it takes him to use her Down's baby against her? Perhaps something along the lines of, What kind of family values lead a new mother to abandon her disabled baby in order to pursue her political future?

Maybe three weeks? Maybe less?

Updated from the comments: Whoever had 8 hours as the over wins.

Time for the next bet: How long until Sullivan suggests that Palin only had her Down's baby for political advantage? I'll give 3 weeks again. Seems like a sucker's line, though.

Second Update: Well, we have another winner! Sullivan passes on a rumor that Palin didn't actually even have the baby. And that the baby is fair game because, "This baby was a centerpiece of the public case for Palin made by the Republicans. They made it an issue - and therefore it is legitimate to ask questions about it."

At what point does David Bradley have a responsibility to protect his other writers and editors from association with Sullivan? If I were Jeff Goldberg or Ross Douthat or Jim Fallows or Mark Bowden--or any of the other very serious, very smart people at that great magazine--I'd be awfully uncomfortable having Sullivan as a colleague.

Sullivan is undermining the magazine's entire intellectual enterprise and laying waste to a brand that took a century to build. I hope someone over there is paying attention.

Third Update: Sullivan now says that there's a photo that "looks like it confirms" Palin's pregnancy. But of course, that's not enough either. He now demands "Just a simple confirmation from the doctor who was present at the birth."

The BSG Ticket--Updated

Watching Palin's introduction it became immediately clear that she looks uncannily like a young Laura Roslin.* This can only bode well for Palin. But the parallels don't stop at her looks. Like Roslin, Palin was basically a private citizen (Roslin was a teacher, Palin was a reporter) before being pulled into politics. Neither seems to have had any larger ambition, until events pulled them into prominence. And both were immediately discounted by outside observers as being unequal to the demands of their new positions.

But wait! There's more!

If Palin is Roslin, isn't McCain very much a Bill Adama? Both are Navy men. Both seemed destined to be passed over by a younger generation of hotshots, until a perfect storm elevated them to command. Both are tough old dogs with little patience for politics. Heck, Adama's staff even call him the Old Man.

Like Adama and Roslin, McCain and Palin should complement each other well. I eagerly await the moment in the VP debate when Palin is asked what she would do with Osama bin Laden if he were captured. One assumes her answer will be some variation of, "Put that thing out the airlock."

* Galley Wife S.L. observed this within seconds of Palin stepping on stage.

Update: Several astute commenters make the point that it's really more of a Tigh-Roslin ticket. I can buy that for a couple reasons: (1) The uncanny physical resemblance of McCain and Tigh; (2) Both McCain and Tigh were POWs; (3) McCain is reputed to have a temper somewhat approaching the Irish of Saul Tigh.

All of that said, in defense of seeing McCain as Adama, I'd argue that (1) Tigh is fundamentally, Adama's guy; McCain is his own man, for better or for worse; (2) Both McCain and Adama were hot-shot fighter jocks; (3) Most strikingly, Adama's Maverick-StreakTM long ago forced him to give up higher command ambitions. It's only by accident that he becomes head of the fleet. I think you could see very much the same thing in McCain's career. It's only a bizarre, perfect-storm of events--9/11, Huckabee, Rudy's crazy Florida strategy, Fred! siphoning votes in SC, Petraeus's brilliance in Iraq--which lead him to this moment. In a more ordinary time, McCain's constant tweaking of the base would have doomed him to the sidelines.

Also, McCain wouldn't resent Kara Thrace; he'd totally dig her.

Obama "Analysis"

You'll recall that I tried to preemptively top the praise of Obama's speech by doing a mock analysis of it earlier in the week. Other readers sent in their own attempts at parody. Below I'm going to reproduce a bunch of the parodies interspersed with the "real analysis" by various bloggers, commentators, etc from the last 12 hours. I defy you to tell which is which.

(A) Stunning. Simply stunning. This is the speech that changed America, that restored her to her erstwhile glory. Tears flood the eyes--and I am not someone who cries easily.

One forgets the native beauty of our founding commitment, and then one is reminded in words so powerful, so simple, so true. Mark my words: decades hence, we shall all look back on this speech and remember the brief shining moment when we were, truly, one nation, under God.

(B) This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Know hope.

(C) Indisputably the greatest political moment we have witnessed in many generations. Behold, America. You have been offered redemption. Seize the opportunity. Remind the world of the better angels of your nature. Now is the time. This is the place. Yes we can.

(D) But the dark moments pass, and this is why. There is still goodness in the land. It lives and walks among us, calling us back to our better selves. With this speech, Barack has brought light to the hinterland. No honest person, no decent person, could vote against him.

Know hope.

(E) It was as if the first three days were the Democratic Party's convention, when the usual lineup of pols and dignitaries got rewarded for their service, and the final night was Obama's convention, where Obama, all on his lonesome, defined the contours of the campaign and laid out what he meant liberalism to look like on his watch.

(F) In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony. It was a masterpiece.

Go ahead. Three of these are parodies and three are from various commenters. I'll even give you a hint by telling you who they are: Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, and David Gergen. Tou tell me which is which.

Tomorrow's News Analysis Today!

I'm in Denver so that you don't have to be. In times of immense boredom, I've taken to writing news accounts of upcoming speeches, with the idea of putting them up against actual analysis after the fact. So far, I've done pretty well, I think. Here, for example, was my pre-fab analysis of Michelle Obama's Monday night speech, which I wrote earlier in the afternoon:

Can you imagine a better speech? A better First Lady? A better woman? If Barack is the savior of our world, Michelle is the savior of our soul. The way she bared her family for all of America to see, inviting us in, to join them. The strength and courage in her every word. Like Barack, America is lucky to have her.

And here's the account Andrew Sullivan gave afterward:

One of the best, most moving, intimate, rousing, humble, and beautiful speeches I've heard from a convention platform. Maybe she should be running for president. You don't need any commentary from me. This was a home-run. And sincere. Thank God that in the end, the truth struggles out there. Just look at her mother's face.

Pretty close, no? So now it's time to turn toward the main event. How will the press react to tomorrow night's Obama revelation? Here's one idea. Feel free to come up with your own.

The bar was impossibly high. This man has already given the three most seminal speeches in modern American politics. He has already changed our perceptions of the possible. And yet there he stood on this sacred day, the columns behind him reminding us of Martin. Of Lincoln. Of our best selves. And he told us the truth: That we are one nation. That we do not need to fear each other. That strength and bluster are not one in the same. America will be a different place when this man is president.

Because of him, it is a different place already.

Too over the top, maybe? We'll see if Sullivan or others can't top it . . .

Great Moments in Law Enforcement

Without comment:

DENVER--Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producers arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel. . . .

Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

The sheriff's officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.

During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, "You're lucky I didn't knock the f..k out of you."

I'm sure there's a perfectly legitimate explanation.

"The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It's almost a feeling of a kind of high."

--Joe Eszterhas, who recently wrote Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith as well as Basic Instinct, Sliver, and Showgirls.

According to the Toledo Blade, Joe isn't faking. But if he converts, who's next? Tom Sizemore?

U.S. Open Notes

Cutie Pie Tennis.

Your one-stop shop for all the really important U.S. Open news.

BSG News

On ratings and sequels.

AWOL

Probably almost no posting here for the next two weeks, not that you'll miss it. I wouldn't dream of sullying these pristine pages with stuff like this.

If you're needing political stuff though, I highly recommend this.

When the Music's Over

If you're a Doors fan, you might have been surprised to learn that the surviving members of the band have been in a legal dispute against each other--specifically Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger versus John Densmore. As it turns out, the former two had been on tour as The Doors. Technically they couldn't use the name unless all three were in it, so the official title of the group was The Doors of the 21st Century. Hmmm.

In any event, a California court has ruled that Manzarek and Krieger owe money from their tour, approximately $5 million, to Densmore as well as Jim Morrison's father and the parents of Morrison's wife Pamela Courson. Manzarek and Krieger's appeal was just turned down by the California Supreme Court.

Does anyone else find it strange that Jim Morrison's father is still alive?

Got Hope?

I remember talking with Galley Friend and Women's Soccer Phenom H.W. about the Hope Solo mess while the U.S. women's team was getting crushed by Brazil a couple years ago. H.W. patiently explained to me that Coach Ryan's decision to pull Solo in favor of Briana Scurry was a judgment call, but that Solo's complaining about it in the press was a worse sin.

Well, the U.S. team just spanked the Brazilians in a re-match. The key difference was having Hope Solo in goal. You would think that women's sports would learn something about professionalism from this: The most offensive aspect of the Solo controversy was that the players on the U.S. voted not to let her play in the next game. Because you, now, sports teams are democracies. There's a deep lesson about professionalism in all of this. (At the time, Czabe had a great email about the entire affair.)

My fear, however, is that some other lesson will be learned. The team will take away how important conflict resolution skills are, or forgiveness is, or some other crap.

As Czabe puts it, "Hey Greg Ryan? How does my ass taste now?"