The Ad Wars

As the midterm elections approach millions of Americans face important decisions. The question of who to support on election day is of vital importance not only to their home state or district, but to the nation's agenda as a whole. And so, as always, it falls to shadowy special interest groups to produce television ads that tell us all how we should vote.

One of the more interesting controversies has surrounded Michael J Fox's ad dealing with stem cell research. This ad I find pretty respectable - it dealt with a single and definable policy, the person appearing in the ad had a vested interest in the policy, and to the extent that it appealed to emotions rather than reason it appealed to hope, not fear. The reaction of Rush Limbaugh to this ad (which he has since apologized for) was to demean it, and to insinuate that Fox was faking or exaggerating his symptoms. This reaction was more emblamatic of the ad wars in that it did not refer to a policy but instead dealt with character, it had no evidence, and relied on fear rather than hope.

Another shadowy group has recently pulled an ad from Tennessee, where Harold Ford was poised to win the Senate seat in an amazing race, becoming the first black Senator from a Southern state in god knows how long. His lead has since slipped dramatically, and the race is getting close. The Democrats are alleging that the ad (seen here) is racist because the blond white girl tells Harold to call her. This is just downright silly in my opinion. The ad would have worked just as well if it was a black girl in that spot - it was making fun of his attendance at a Playboy party and had nothing to do with race. I personally think that the Democrats raised the race issue in order to try and reverse the falling poll numbers of their candidate. And hey, it worked for a little bit, but it's still part of the dirty ad war as far as I'm concerned.

New Link

Avid readers of this blog will have noticed a new link under 'Blogs of Note'. The SCOTUS Blog is a very interesting, somewhat objective (it has functionalist leanings) review of the US Supreme Court.

It is a great place to go for breakdowns of recent cases, especially ones that don't make the headlines but are nevertheless important in terms of American jurisprudential philosophy. With everyone wondering how the court will shift due to the additions of Roberts and Alito, this is a good place to check periodically.

Incidentally, SCOTUS = Supreme Court Of The United States, in case you were wondering.

Beirut in Retrospect

23 years ago today 241 Marines and others were killed in a suicide attack on the marine barracks in Beirut. A Mercedez-Benz truck, loaded with explosives, crashed through the security barriers and into the barracks, detonating with the explosive force of 12,000 pounds of TNT. Until the Iraq war, this was the deadliest single attack on US soldiers on foreign soil since WW2.

Despite the many eminent authorities that have cited the creed that "history is doomed to repeat itself", I find that the circumstances are always different and you can never easily apply past lessons to current situations. With that caveat in mind, I think it is instructive and humbling to look at how the US handled the bombings in Beirut.

The bombing took place in an environment of hostility against the West. Anti-American rhetoric coming out of many Arab nations was high, and countries such as Iran and Syria were calling for the destruction of not only Israel, but the 'Great Satan' as well. The US military presence was seen as imperialistic and oppressive, and despite US efforts to reach out and start a dialogue with these groups and countries, there was violence and tension in the area. While it has not been proven, it is suspected that Hizbollah carried out the bombings with the funding and approval of the Iranian government.

Does the above paragraph sound familiar?

After the Beirut bombings many options were discussed. President Reagan considered a military strike, sanctions, and other retaliatory measures. The military strike was planned and ready to go, but it was aborted prematurely. This was largely because the Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger, was concerned that it would jepordize US relations with other Arab nations without really accomplishing anything. No retaliatory measures ever materialized. 6 months later the Marines were pulled out of Lebanon.

It is debatable whether this was the right thing to do. Clearly the radical fundamentalist groups that existed then still exist today, they still hate the US, and they still want to kill Americans. So from that perspective perhaps we should have had a stronger response that would have changed the course of events. But the other vewpoint also has validity: namely that without committing massive amounts of ground trips and engaging in a long and bloody struggle, there is a high probability that whatever retaliatory strikes we would have committed would not have curtailed the enemy's ability to commit acts of terrorism at all, and it would have had the significantly deleterious consequence of making it difficult for us to maintain good relations with oil-rich friends like Saudi Arabia.

They both seem to have foreign policy upsides and downsides. Of course, in one scenario many US servicemen lose their lives, and in the other they don't -- and that for me is the deciding factor. Also note that Weinberger was not a 'dove' by any measure; in fact he was quite hawkish. We can largely thank him for the massive defense buildup of the 80's, including the Star Wars program.

I'll close this retrospective by noting that after the Beirut bombings, Caspar Weinberger distributed internally a set of 6 guidelines for committing US troops abroad. Decades later, a man who had risen many levels since that date resuscitated that list from the mists of time in analyzing another war. That man is Colin Powell.

(l) Commit only if our or our allies' vital interests are at stake.

(2) If we commit, do so with all the resources necessary to win.

(3) Go in only with clear political and military objectives.

(4) Be ready to change the commitment if the objectives change, since wars rarely stand still.

(5) Only take on commitments that can gain the support of the American people and the Congress.

(6) Commit U.S. forces only as a last resort.

Legal Food for Thought

I have begun to start developing my thoughts on how the law should be practiced, although I clearly do not yet have a legal philosophy that is grounded in anything other than a vague idea of the law. It is a topic that has become very politically charged with the recent US Supreme Court appointments by Bush, but I have tried my best to withold judgement until I can see what formalism vs functionalism really means within the scope of American jurisprudence, and how that difference in interpretation and application plays out in various court decisions.

In this blog I will chronicle some thoughts on the subject.

There are two quotes below...perhaps I'll give some thoughts on how I interpret them in, and what I think their significance is, in later posts. But I think you should read them if you find this topic fascinating as I do (or even, really, if you're only mildly interested in said subject) as they are great food for thought. I myself have been chewing on them for a little while now. The first quote is short, the other lengthier.

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible ye might be mistaken"
-Oliver Cromwell

The next quote comes from A Man For All Seasons, a play by Robert Bolt, based on the life of Sir Thomas More.

Alice: Arrest him!

More: Why, what has he done?

Margaret: He's bad!

More: There is no law against that.

Roper: There is! God's law!

More: Then God can arrest him.

Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.

More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.

Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!

More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.

Alice: While you talk, he's gone!

More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Television

I've never been a big television viewer - I always left it to those around me. Occasionally I'd get caught up in a show or two (24 and Hell's Kitchen come to mind), but the vast majority of the time I'd flip on the tube only to pass the time between various tasks, while waiting for food to cook, or perhaps while sipping a scotch before bed. I would venture to guess that my average television consumption was, at most 30 minutes a day.

Not anymore.

Over the past month I'd say my average has increased to about 2.5 hours a day. That's a 400% increase folks - and it's getting worse. I'm worried.

I've identified the reasons for this, but the problem is the solution. Yesterday I tried to tell myself that I would not turn on the television before 10pm. You know what happened? I broke down. And why? Why did I end up bowing to this dynamic pixelated god? Because I was bored. The sheer prospect of time floating in front of me did not goad me to do something useful with my life, but instead forced me into the semi-dream state of television from which one can emerge hours later and have no sense of the passage of time.

If you started reading this expecting some sort of conclusion or resolution, I'm sorry to dissapoint you. It's just something that was on my mind, and so I'd thought I'd share. My friend Rob has pointed out in recent blog posts that there is actually some quality programming on television, and of course it's football season, so my time in front of the tube is not all completely wasted time.

However, I'm not convinced that rationale can be stretched to 2.5 hours a day. Oh well.