What's the story with George Bush and newspapers?

I'm a bit confused. According to this New York Times article on George Bush's involvement with his re-election campaign:

On weekdays, aides say, the campaign essentially begins in the White House residence, where Mr. Bush rises at 5 a.m. to read the newspapers and check on the political news, before calling Mr. Rove to compare notes on what took place overnight and what will take place later.

Yet according to an interview with Fox News anchor Brit Hume that took place in September 2003, Bush doesn't read newspapers on a daily basis, instead asking White House chief of staff Andy Card "what's in the newspapers worth worrying about."

A later interview with Diane Sawyer confirmed that Bush typically doesn't read newspapers. Bush admitted not reading the important stories, since he gets "[his] news from people who don't editorialize. They give [him] the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts."

So the question is... does George Bush read newspapers or not? Now, maybe things have changed in the year or so since the interview with Hume. Maybe Bush reads newspapers now.

But why the switch? The NYTimes article gives the impression that Bush reads the newspaper just to keep up with news about the campaign. Couldn't his advisors do an adequate job of that? Or maybe it's that Bush is more concerned with getting re-elected than governing effectively; perhaps he'd much rather read up on the effects of the latest Swift Boat ad than, you know, something that actually mattered.

Just a thought.

Quite the Cup story, eh?

Did anybody hear about this?

Turns out Air Canada failed to check the Stanley Cup because the flight it was supposed to be on was overweight. The guardian of the Cup told the check-in attendant that his luggage was, er, the Stanley Cup, but somehow the luggage loaders on the runway didn't get the message.

My favorite part of the article is this line from the publisher of the Alaska Highway News. "The Stanley Cup is the most important non-religious artifact in Canada."

The most important non-religious artifact? Come on... can you name a more important religious artifact in Canada? Hell, can you name a single religious artifact in Canada?

Enough

I'm sick of all the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stuff. I'm sick of the shoddy claims made by the group themselves. I'm sick of their defenders dismissing arguments similar to those made in support of George Bush's problems with honesty (did he know he was presenting false information?). I'm sick of George Bush refusing to take a stand on the Swift Boat ads. I'm sick of it all.

So you won't hear any more about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth from me. No siree.

From now on, anything you read here about the presidential campaign will be about the policies of George Bush and John Kerry and their ability to lead this country. At least I hope that's the way it goes, since it's far too stressful to get bogged down in details that don't really matter.

On that note, go read this post by Juan Cole about Bush's youthful alcholism, that alcoholism's still-present effects on his intellect and behavior, and Bush's ability to be a rational and empathetic leader of the United States of America.

A Compare & Contrast of my own

And this, my friends, is what we call moving the goalposts.

On August 14, Will Collier, guestblogging (I think) at Vodkapundit, wrote this about John Kerry's service in Vietnam and Kerry's use of that service in his campaign:

It looks like Kerry and at least some of his supportive "band of brothers" (good thing for Kerry that Stephen Ambrose is dead--otherwise Ambrose would have had plenty to say about that little appropriation) are flat making up stuff about Kerry's service record.

According to Collier, Kerry is lying. The implication is that this makes him unfit for the presidency.

Earlier this morning, Vodkapundit proprieter Stephen Green did a little compare and contrast (actually, he doesn't. He simply lays out two quotations and leaves the comparing and contrasting for the reader. But this trick is rather common in the blogosphere, so this isn't a big deal).

The first bit is from a Boston Globe article of last year, describing how John Kerry requested and received a transfer back to the United States after being wounded three times. The second is a quotation from Colin Powell recounting his trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center where a soldier who had lost a leg to amputation asked "General, how soon do you think they can get me back up on my new leg so I can get back into the Army and get back into the fight?"

Green ends his piece with "'Nuff said." The implication is rather clear. Good soldiers want to continue the fight. John Kerry, opportunist that he was, got the first ticket out of Vietnam he could. And, going a step further, Kerry's opportunism and cowardice makes him a poor choice for president.

Now, if you want to make this argument, feel free. But I'm not sure how wise it is to impugn the patriotism and bravery of a man who volunteered for service and Vietnam and served there with distinction, earning three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star.

But that argument isn't my main concern here. The real problem is that Vodkapundit has shifted the terms of the argument. First, John Kerry is unfit to lead because he's a liar. Now, apparently, he's unfit to lead because he asked (quite justifiably) to leave Vietnam after being wounded three times. These are two very different arguments (neither of which holds much water, but that's a separate issue).

It's hard to see this as anything but an attempt to attack John Kerry on any available grounds, discarding failed arguments without a peep when they're no longer useful. It's pretty clear now (based on investigations by The New York Times and the Washington Post, investigations, incidentally, that Vodkapundit has called for and now has seemingly little interest in) that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have lied about Kerry's record in Vietnam and that Kerry was telling the truth all along.* Since the "Kerry is a liar" jig is up, why not move to the "Kerry is a coward and an opportunist" bit?

I have no problems with people arguing against John Kerry or for George Bush. It pisses me off, however, when those arguments are not made in good faith. If you have a sincere desire to get the record straight, you wouldn't ignore how wrong the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been. You'd come out and say, "Look. I was wrong about Kerry's service in Vietnam. You got me there. On a completely different note, however, here's another reason not to vote for John Kerry." That's legitimate. It's complete bullshit to abandon your arguments and fail to acknowledge that you're doing it just because you turned out to be wrong.

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*I don't want to go through the "Christmas in Cambodia" thing again. He got the date wrong. Is that going to change your vote come November?

The Changing Face of American Freedom

I've just posted a new paper, The Changing Face of American Freedom. It's the product of my internship this summer at the National Museum of American Jewish History. Currently, the museum is quite small, with enough space for one exhibit at a time. The groundbreaking for a new building, however, will take place next year, with an entirely new museum opening at some point in 2007. The new museum will have an extensive permanent exhibition that traces Jewish American history from 1654, when the first Jews arrived in what would become the United States, to the present.

This paper helps illuminates one of the museum's major themes: freedom. It's hardly exhaustive, considering the space constraints given (as it is, it's four pages over what was asked of me), but it does outline the key feature of an accurate narrative of freedom in America: freedom has been an dynamic concept in America, with both its definition and its beneficiaries changing dramatically in the course of the past few centuries.

Two problems with the Phillies

Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Don McKee writes two items about the Philadelphia Phillies today. In both cases, he makes a good (if fairly obvious) point, and then completely fails to draw any meaningful conclusion from those observations.

First, McKee speculates that Larry Bowa, the Phillies manager, will likely keep his job for the remainder of the season and be fired in the off-season, in spite of the recent homestand where the Phils went 1-10 and the fact that it would take a miracle the likes of which the Philadelphia sports world has never seen* for the Phillies to make the playoffs. Here's McKee's take:

The betting here is that Bowa will finish the season. The Phillies were dead in the water in late July, after the Marlins swept them in four games in Florida. Bowa survived that, so there seems little reason to fire him now. Whoever is assessing this strangely lifeless collection of non-performers can do so from upstairs.

But a harsh assessment is warranted. This team carried a $93 million payroll into opening day, it plays in a state-of-the-art ballpark packed with eager fans, and it relaxes in the most lavish quarters in major-league baseball.

The result has been no spirit, no hustle, no grit and no show.

It's absolutely true that the 2004 Phillies haven't shown much heart. They've had some big comeback victories, but those never seem to fire up the team to start a big winning streak.

Might it be the case, however, that the lack of grit that the Phillies display is partially the manager's fault? All season long there have been rumblings in the clubhouse that some players don't like playing for Larry Bowa.

How do you determine whether or not Bowa's to blame? Well, one idea is to fire Bowa now and see how the players perform under a different manager for the rest of the season. But no, McKee sees "little reason to fire him now." Larry Bowa has, on paper, one of the best teams in the league. Yet he's managed that team to a 61-62 record. Blame injuries if you must, but Bowa's poor tactical decisions and clubhouse demeanor just isn't getting it done.

(Incidentally, for an overview of what the Phillies should do with the rest of the season, check out this post on Phillies Fan. Drastic? Yes? Useful? Absolutely.)

McKee's then deals with Bowa's boss, Phillies general manager Ed Wade. The conventional wisdom in these parts is that Wade is gun-shy when it comes to trading away prospects for impact players. As McKee points out, this isn't entirely accurate:

However, far from being a guy who won't trade prospects, Wade might actually have traded too many minor leaguers.

Since the end of 2002, the Phillies have traded Johnny Estrada, Taylor Buchholz, Ezequiel Astacio, Nick Punto, Bobby Korecki, Elizardo Ramirez, Alfredo Simon, Javon Moran, Joe Wilson and Anderson Machado for Kevin Millwood, Billy Wagner, Eric Milton, Todd Jones, Felix Rodriguez and Cory Lidle.

A whole boatload of prospects for Kevin Millwood, Billy Wagner, Eric Milton, Todd Jones, Felix Rodriguez, and Cory Lidle. All of these guys are pitchers - three starters and three relievers. You'd think, then, that the Phils' pitching staff would be one of the best in the league. After all, the point of trading prospects is to get impact players, right? Well, you'd be wrong. The Phillies currently rank 13th in the National League in team ERA.** And it's not as if these pitchers have been doing well and the Phillies homegrown talent has floundered. With the exception of Billy Wagner (who's been hurt a lot this season) and Felix Rodriguez (who's only been with the Phils for about a month), Ed Wade's big trade acquisitions have been mediocre.***

The problem is not that Ed Wade doesn't make enough trades. The problem is that Ed Wade makes crappy trades, sending away legitimate prospects for mediocre major leaguers.

If the Phillies are going to win any championships any time soon, they're going to need some serious changes in their management, starting with Larry Bowa and Ed Wade.

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*Okay, okay. I suppose Rocky Balboa defeating Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago were also pretty big miracles. But those don't count. For obvious reasons.

**Some of this can be attributed to the Phillies' home, Citizens Bank Park, being a hitter's park. But not that much, really.

***Yes, Eric Milton is sporting a 13-2 record. But pitchers' win-loss records don't tell you much about how they pitch.

The dangers of selective quotation, or Further evidence that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are a bunch of hacks

The latest Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad (I'd rather not link to it) features John Kerry's testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971. Here's what Kerry said, according to the Swift Boat Veterans:

They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads... randomly shot at civilians... cut off limbs, blown up bodies... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan... crimes committed on a day to day basis... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.

Interspersed with Kerry's testimony are statements like this:

-- "The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating."

-- "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us."

-- "He betrayed us in the past, how could we be loyal to him now?"

The point of the ad, then, is that John Kerry demoralized and betrayed his fellow Vietnam veterans by accusing them of war crimes.

Frankly, the ad is irresponsible, deceptive, and, put more crudely, complete crap.

Go read the entire transcript of Kerry's testimony that Atrios has put up. First, Kerry wasn't accusing veterans of anything. Instead, Kerry was reporting the testimony "over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans" regarding these crimes. By ignoring Kerry's introduction, the ad shifts the information from the realm of fact to Kerry's imagination.

Second, the point of Kerry's testimony was not to betray or demoralize veterans of the Vietnam War. Here's the relevant portion of Kerry's testimony:

I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

In his Senate testimony, John Kerry sought to cast blame on the United States government for sending young Americans into awful circumstances in Vietnam. This bears repeating. John Kerry did not blame Vietnam veterans; he laid the guilt firmly on the U.S. government.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad distorts the essence of John Kerry's testimony. That much is clear to anyone who actually reads the transcript. It's just as clear that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have no interest in presenting an accurate account of the past. Their sole concern is casting John Kerry in as negative a light as possible, truth be damned.

NBC's Olympic coverage shines, but not too brightly

I've spent a good portion of the past four days watching the Olympics. Of the 28 Olympic sports, I've seen coverage of 16. Actually, counting them up just then, I was surprised it was that many. I think that says a lot about NBC's coverage of the Games - far better than I expected, with a surprising breadth of events covered.

Still, Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm gets it exactly right in his take on NBC's presentation of the Olympics. The crux of his article, and my biggest complaint about NBC's coverage is this:

Time after time, as it always does in the relatively obscure sports of the Olympics, the esoteric raised its mystifying head during the weekend, and the overly knowledgeable commentators failed to let us in on the secrets.

Storm's chief examples are swimming and gymnastics - what exactly is wrong with a dolphin kick in the breaststroke? what were the elements of the American high bar routines that were effectively disallowed by gymnastics judge Sawao Kato?* And this is for the two prestige events of the first half of the Olympics.

You can imagine, then, the confusion viewers face when trying to understand the more obscure sports. Take fencing. Now, my knowledge of fencing is entirely drawn from a single scene of The Princess Bride (you know the one).** But I was pretty damn sure that whoever touches his/her opponent first wins the point. Fairly intuitive, right?

Perhaps, but that's not how it goes, at least not in saber. It turns out that the first touch wins the point only if you're on the attack or you have successfully defended an attack from your opponent. It's as confusing as it sounds, and awfully difficult to figure out who has the "right of way" at real speed, at least to the untrained now.

Now imagine watching the saber without even knowing that making the first touch does not guarantee winning the point. That's the situation I (and other non-fencing savvy viewers) faced when I stumbled on the men's saber competition over the weekend. The commentary crew started throwing around words like "parry" and "riposte," that, apparently, I've got an intuitive sense of what those mean, but I have no clue about their technical fencing meaning in fencing.

I did some internet research to figure out this stuff out. It turns out to be fairly straightforward, provided you lay it out correctly.

NBC's commentators failed to provide an even basic explanation of key facets of the saber event, without which it's impossible to watch the event with any understanding.

There's really no excuse for this. NBC knows what events are in the Olympics. It can't take much to come up with a brief, pre-packaged overview of each event. A bulleted list of the key rules. Some fancy graphics. Perhaps some footage to demonstrate exemplary or faulty performance. The technology is there. To leave viewers befuddled at jargon is a shame, especially considering that, for once, Americans actually have the opportunity to watch less well-known sports.

I'm probably being overcritical. As I said above, NBC's coverage has been a pleasant surprise. But the (Summer) Olympics only come around every four years. That means NBC has had four years to get it right. And so far, they haven't.



*I'm not sure how accurate this characterization is, largely because the commentary on the decision was rather opaque.

**Turns out that Bonetti, Thibault, Capo Ferro, and Agrippa were, in fact, fencing masters. I have no idea whether the swordplay in the film is at all representative of the styles Wesley (sorry, The Man in Black) and Inigo reference.

Wins, losses, and why they don't matter

As you probably heard if you follow the sports world, Greg Maddux won his 300th game over the weekend, becoming the 22nd such pitcher in major league history. As baseball analysts have been tripping over themselves to say, he might very well be the last one to achieve the feat (with the possible exception of Maddux's former teammate Tom Glavine).

Along with Roger Clemens, Maddux is one of the top two players of the past 20 years. It's difficult to compare their careers. Clemens has more wins, but has also played for a few more years. Maddux has a lower career ERA, but he's spent his entire career in the DH-less National League. At their absolute best, Clemens is probably the better pitcher, but Maddux has been the more consistent of the two, considering his ERA hasn't been above 4.00 since 1987.

To be sure, 300 wins is quite an accomplishment. You don't win 300 without being one hell of a pitcher. But I'd argue that career win totals aren't a very good indicator of how good a pitcher is. The reason is quite simple.

Wins and losses do not reflect how good a pitcher is.

Let's review the definition of wins and losses for pitchers to see why this is the case. From MLB.com:

Wins
The starting pitcher is credited with a win if he has pitched at least five complete innings and his team not only is in the lead when he is replaced but remains in the lead the remainder of the game. When the starting pitcher is not credited with the win, the win shall be awarded to the relief pitcher judged by the scorer to have been the most effective, or who is the pitcher of record when his team assumes the lead and maintains it to the finish of the game.

Losses
The total number of losses charged to the pitcher. A pitcher is charged with the loss of the game if he is replaced when his team is behind in the score, or falls behind because of runs charged to him after he is replaced, and his team thereafter fails either to tie the score or gain the lead, regardless of how many innings he has pitched.

The short version: if you're pitching when lead in the game changes for the last time, you get a decision. If that change puts your team in the lead, you get the win. If the other team takes the lead, you get the loss.

This is pretty intuitive stuff.

The problem is that it depends on a whole lot more than how you pitch. In particular, wins and losses reflect how your team does around you. If your team scores, say, 10 runs, you've got a pretty good shot of winning. If, however, your team doesn't score at all, there's no chance you can get the win.

Imagine pitching shutout ball all season long, never giving up a single run. If your team also fails to score, your record will be 0-0. Your record reveals none of your pitching dominance. Yes, this example is extreme and absurd. But it reveals a fundamental flaw in the win-loss criteria. Without adequate run support, pitchers cannot win games.

The question of run support doesn't even touch upon the whole "pitcher of record" business.

A recent Phillies game provides the perfect example on why wins and losses aren't accurate reflections of this problem. On July 25, Phillies starter Eric Milton pitched a no-hitter through eight innings. Up 'til the ninth inning, Milton had been nearly perfect, only walking one. Thanks to some shoddy defense, Milton gave up two runs in the ninth, losing the no-hitter and allowing the game to be tied. Reliever Ryan Madson came in and got the final out of the top of the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth, the Phils scored a run and took the win.

Ryan Madson got the win.

Let's review. Eric Milton pitched 8 2/3 superb innings, giving up only three hits and two runs. Ryan Madson pitched to a single batter, getting Sammy Sosa to ground out. Yet, since Ryan Madson was pitching for the Phillies when they retook the lead, he got the win. As for Eric Milton's win-loss record; it was exactly the same as at the beginning of the game, in spite of the fact that he pitched his best game of the season.

To sum up, win-loss records simply do not reflect how a pitcher's performance. Instead, they reflect how a team does when a given player pitches. You could argue that, hey, wins and losses are what really matters, so this is a useful statistic. But you'd be holding a pitcher accountable for something that he has almost no control over.* You could also argue that certain pitchers bring out the best in their teammates, somehow inspiring them to score lots of runs. But it's been shown that, year-to-year, this doesn't happen. In the long run, run support is randomly distributed.

So where does this leave us with Greg Maddux? Well, I'd like to point out that he spent over half his career with the Atlanta Braves who, it just so happens, won their division in each of the years Maddux played with them. Now, a big part of the Braves' success can be attributed to their top-notch pitching staff. But you don't win that many division titles without scoring some runs. In other words, you can't look at Maddux's win-loss record in his Atlanta years without also considering the fact that the Braves scored a fair amount of runs around him. Would Maddux have won that many games if he were pitching for, say, the Phillies? In short, no.

This doesn't diminish the tremendous career that Maddux has had. Rather, it suggests that we should look at other statistics to see his greatness. Like, for example, his 2.93 career ERA.

I've rambled long enough. If nothing else, just take pitchers' W-L records with a giant grain of salt. Better yet, don't look at them at all.
*In the National League, unlike the American League, pitchers bat. Pitchers, to put it lightly, aren't renowned for their offensive prowess. So while NL pitchers do have the ability to "help themselves" offensively, it doesn't happen much.

John Stossel is an idiot

John Stossel has been annoying me for years, first on 20/20, then wherever I see him. He's on C-SPAN at the moment, decrying the "distortion of the free market."

He started off with a fairly sensible critique of the current drug war, arguing that the criminizalization of drugs has lead to a whole host of other problems. While the government has good intentions in protecting the American people, here, Stossel argues, it ends up doing more harm than good. This much I follow and, more or less, agree with.

The next step is where Stossel falls apart and starts spouting gibberish. Here's a rough paraphrase:

"The next thing you know, the government will be sending people into your home and forcing you to exercise every day."

Or not. Could Stossel please explain how the government preventing people from buying drugs will lead to the American government requiring its citizens to exercise?

Now Stossel's raving about the irresponsbility of the media. How about the irresonsibilty of his arguments?

Teresa Heinz Kerry, Andrew Sullivan, and linguistic diversity in the U.S.A

Via this Cliopatra post by KC Johnson, I came across Andrew Sullivan's critique of Teresa Heinz Kerry's convention speech at the Democratic National Convention. I saw the speech, and I don't have any strong feelings about it. We vote (or should vote) for politicians, not their spouses. There's little a candidate's spouse could say in a speech that would affect the way I would vote.

Consequently, I think Sullivan wasted his time taking apart Heinz Kerry's speech. Until she displays some political ambitions of her own, I don't think it's worth the time to analyze what she said (at least not when there are more substantive issues worthy of discussion).

But I just do feel the need to take issue with one part of Sullivan's article. Quoted below, it's a complaint about Heinz Kerry opening her speech with bits of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Now there are many languages spoken in the United States. French isn't one of the more common ones. Neither is Portuguese. THK was saying nothing here, it seems to me, except, "I can speak lots of languages." Good for her. But the point? That her opponents don't care to appeal to new immigrants? Or that new immigrants have a special claim on the Democrats? As one myself, I'd like to think so, but I'd also like not to be set apart. The opening of her speech was simply an exercise in exhibitionist cosmopolitanism. She's not the Pope; and her audience is American, not French. I don't get it. Neither, I suspect, did many others.

Sullivan doesn't mention the inapplicability of Spanish or Italian. The implication, at least as far as I can tell, is that those languages are spoken by enough Americans to warrant inclusion in a political speech. Speaking French and Portuguese to an American audience is, according to Andrew Sullivan, just showing off.

There's just one problem. Check out these 2000 census data. Here's an excerpt of the relevant information:

Spanish or Spanish Creole: 28,101,052 speakers
French (including Patois, Cajun)*: 1,643,838 speakers
Italian: 1,008,370 speakers
Portuguese or Portuguese Creole: 564,630 speakers

Turns out that more Americans speak French than Italian. In fact, French is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the U.S., following English, Spanish, and Chinese.** In other words, Sullivan is flat-out wrong. French is one of the more commonly spoken languages in America. And half a million Portuguese speakers are hardly small enough a group to scoff at.

I can see why Sullivan might see Heinz Kerry's opening as "an exercise in exhibitionist cosmopolitanism." But the fact is, she directed her speech in languages that are widely spoken in the United States. Was she showing off? Perhaps. But she was also speaking to a substantial number of Americans in their own language. What's more, unlike the pandering politicians who pepper their speeches with atrocious Spanish, she's qualified to do so.

*The fact that these figures include Patois and Cajun speakers complicates things. I'm not sure what their numbers are. My understanding, however, is that speakers of Patois and Cajun typically understand French without much trouble (though not vice versa). I think it's entirely reasonable to assume that a Cajun speaker would understand the French bit Heinz Kerry used.

**I'm not sure what to make of the Chinese figure. There are, after all, numerous "dialects" of Chinese that could just as readily be classified as distinct languages.