"Late Show" host David Letterman kept up a verbal assault on John McCain Thursday, saying he felt like an "ugly date" because the GOP presidential candidate backed out of a scheduled appearance on his talk show.
The night before, Letterman had said McCain's decision to suspend his campaign to deal with the economic crisis "didn't smell right." Letterman substituted MSNBC's "Countdown" host — and critic of the Arizona senator — Keith Olbermann when McCain called him to say he wouldn't appear Wednesday.
The comic was unhappy when McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead of him Wednesday — and even more perturbed to learn that McCain didn't leave New York until Thursday.
He said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I'm feeling like an ugly date."
"That's what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."
McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said Thursday that the campaign "felt this wasn't a night for comedy."
Not a time for comedy? Then why are John McCain and Sarah Palin providing so much material? I would have thought it was the PERFECT time for comedy.
Newspapers in the future"I'd like to suggest to you that the term newspaper should be broken into two parts, news and paper. The paper part needs to be put aside for a moment, as it is only one of many potential distribution methods. The news engine is independent of the delivery mechanism, or it should be…. when you move into the online environment you know that deadline is a bit of a funny word, or at least it should be because it can go as soon as it's editorial accepted. The notion that news is continuous as opposed to an episodic thing has a lot of dramatic effects on the consumers of that information."
And this is before McCain sought to suspend the first Presidential debate, which is apparently playing very badly.Bad news for McCain from our friends at Fox
by kos
Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:38:58 PM PDT
Opinion Dynamics for Fox News. 9/22-23. Registered voters. 3% (9/8-9 results)
McCain (R) 39 (45)
Obama (D) 45 (42)Thirty nine? Really? Thirty-freaking-nine?
And this poll was conducted before McCain cut and run on the debates.
Update: Let's dig a bit into the internals (PDF).
Independents
McCain (R) 31 (46)
Obama (D) 36 (31)That one's gotta hurt. That's a 20-point swing.
And speaking of swings, compared to the previous poll after the GOP convention, Sarah Palin's net favorability is down 16 points, McCain's down 11. Obama is +3 (eight points higher than McCain) while Biden is down five.
What else? Asked which candidate they'd be most likely to go hear speak, 42 percent said Obama, 24 percent McCain, 14 percent Palin and 3 percent Biden.
New York Gov. David Paterson on Monday said Wall Street might lay off 40,000 workers in a worst-case scenario following Lehman Brother's bankruptcy filing and problems at other big financial firms.For more read here.Paterson, speaking a news conference where he also noted the impact of Bank of America's surprise agreement to purchase Merrill Lynch and problems threatening insurer American International Group, said the impact of the financial sector's downturn may not be known for months or even years.
Houses of cards, chickens coming home to roost - pick your cliche. The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers.
We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move towards anti-trust measures - yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.
Eventually, however, we were always going to learn how big the safety net was. And a sign of the limits of the US Federal Reserve and treasury's willingness to rescue comes with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, one of the most famous Wall Street names.
The big question always centres on systemic risk: to what extent does the collapse of an institution imperil the financial system as a whole?
Bloggers have commented on the absence of Apple from this consortium.How do you make digital entertainment more entertaining? A sprawling consortium of Hollywood content providers, consumer electronics companies, and Internet players said on Sept. 12 that its members are planning to develop a standard that will let consumers buy movies and other digital content once and play them almost anywhere, on any type of device, without the onerous restrictions that have hobbled the growth of digital downloads.
The consortium is called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). Its members have been working since May to create rules that will let consumers share their purchased content on a number of devices in the home, or stream them over the Internet to laptops, cell phones, or other electronic gear.
So there you have it. 'Key fomer Costello supporters' - whoever they are - not only receive the same questions from Glenn Milne, but collectively offer the same answers. They 'will make up their own minds'.Key former Costello supporters have now switched to Turnbull.
I ask them: "If Turnbull mounts a challenge and Costello rings to say, don't do it, what would be your response?''
They say: "Peter has now dealt himself out of the party's future; therefore, he has no say in it. We will make up our own minds''.
Once upon a time governments developed their policies through either party avenues such as a composite motion if the Labour Party, or a carefully worded resolution from a loyal association if the Conservatives. Both parties also had powerful research departments, while the civil service was a source of ideas when either party was in office.
This model began to unravel as politics became more technocratic and managerial, and policy more specialist and political at the same time, with the arrival of ‘special advisers’ in the Wilson Government of 1964-70, and even more so following this with the explosion of think tanks around Westminster in recent decades.
This essay addresses the unprecedented explosion in think tanks in the United Kingdom, what the consequences are for our democracy, polity and politics, and where it leaves those of us who care about the state of our democracy.
First, it is important to give a little background on the term and evolution of ‘think tank’. The phrase has its origins in the Second World War in the USA when it was used to denote strategists who discussed war planning. The establishment of the RAND Corporation in 1946 became the first body to be recognisably called a ‘think tank’ (apologies to the British Fabian Society established in 1884, but who were not called a think tank until much later).
The RAND Corporation are one of the key organisations in the making of the post-war modern world and a body which came from deep within the American military-industrial complex, and who gave us such concepts as futures thinking, scenario planning and ‘the missile gap’ between the US and Soviet Union.
Post-war the United States has developed an extensive infrastructure of think tanks – which has been driven by the adversarial nature of US politics, the alternation of bureaucracies with parties in power, and the lack of party resources for policy development.
From the 1970s onward, conservative and right-wing think tanks have contributed to the creation of an influential ‘conservative movement’, which remade the Republican Party, and shifted US politics rightward. The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute are all multi-million pound operations which dwarf the comparable operations of Democrat and centre-left bodies, and have a zealous, ideological drive to push forward their agenda.
Whatever the result of the forthcoming US Presidential elections, this imbalance in political power and finance will continue; the infrastructure of the ‘conservative movement’ and its think tanks, churches and groups will sadly not disappear.
A Short History of the UK Think Tank Revolution
The UK think tank revolution arrived first as a challenge to the ‘Yes Minister’ way of doing things and the Oxbridge consensus of managing decline. This was evidenced by the emergence of a number of right-wing think tanks: the Institute of Economic Affairs set up in 1955 and subsequently the Centre for Policy Studies, established by Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher, and the Adam Smith Institute, both formed in the 1970s.
These began as ‘outsider’ groups challenging the post-war settlement, the growth of government, public spending and welfare, and played a major part in the thinking of the Thatcher government which came to reshape Britain.
The Labour Party, reeling from three election defeats responded by setting up the Institute for Public Policy Research in 1988, and after a fourth defeat, independent centre-leftists associated with Marxism Today formed Demos in 1993.
These were meant to counter the influence of the right-wing think tanks and replicate their success. This completely misread the situation. The success of the Thatcher government was not mostly due to think tanks, but the failures of the post-war settlement and changes in Britain and the world economy from the 1970s onward. The Thatcher government also had from its beginnings an over-arching philosophy and sense of direction which it had begun to flesh out in opposition.
Labour after four defeats had lost any sense of confidence or direction it had in the post-war era and looked to the think tank model to replace this. Subsequently, the era of New Labour saw an unprecedented explosion of think tanks in the Westminster village. These two facts are related. As the political classes coalesced around a post-Thatcherite consensus, debate about policy and ideas became about technical and managerial matters and issues of delivery.
This suited think tanks and the way they operated. A shark’s infested sea of think tanks paradoxically offered less choice, and more of the same, as they jockeyed for position and told politicians increasingly what they wanted to hear. The UK has spawned such a large number of think tanks that in 2001 Prospect magazine set up its Think Tank of the Year competition which was won in 2006 by Policy Exchange for its ‘zip’ and ‘high impact’, and IPPR the following year in what the judges acknowledged ‘hasn’t been a vintage year in the British think tank world.’ (1)
A little bit of nuance and subtlety should be acknowledged here. It is impossible to tarnish all think tank work with the same brush. The Institute of Public Policy Research did undertake serious, rigorous work in its early years, particularly around the Commission on Social Justice; and Demos in its first years did produce a lot of vibrant and evangelical, if somewhat superficial ideas: ‘joined-up governance’, ‘social entrepreneurship’ and many others.
In the last few years, the most substantial thinking in this world has come from those challenging the conventional think tank world. There has been the idea of ‘the do tank’, moving from just thinking to doing, the ideas of Tom Bentley, when Director of Demos of ‘everyday democracy’, the Young Foundation, addressing issues around ‘community’, and the Centre for Social Justice, set up by Iain Duncan Smith. Most impressive as a challenge to the increasingly dogmatic and narrow bandwidth of political debate has been the work of the New Economics Foundation. What these examples show is that there is something significantly up with the conventional idea of a think tank. (2)
The conventional think tank model is a very Anglo-American model of politics shaped by money and influence, and one we have increasingly exported around the world – as we have proven arrogant enough to sell our view of deregulation and privatisation of even the most basic utilities.
Step forward with pride the UK Government whose Department for International Development has bankrolled the Adam Smith Institute to advise governments across the African continent of the merits of privatisation. Clare Short, supposedly a left-wing minister, said as Development Minister in 2002:
Privatisation is the only way to get the investment that poor countries need in things like banking, tourism, telecommunications, and services such as water, under good regulatory arrangements.
The Lack of Self-Reflection in the World of Think Tankery
What is revealing is how lacking in self-criticism and renewal are many of the people involved in the think tank industry. Richard Reeves, newly appointed director of Demos, has recently argued that think tanks ‘win their influence through intimacy with their principal political ‘clients’ or through independent technical expertise.’ This leads, Reeves believes, to the political class listening to them the way ‘you might listen to your spouse or your GP.’
Reeves did not address why think tanks are the best arbiters and providers of this ‘expertise’, or consider Jim Knight, Labour MP’s point that they are ‘ultimately very elitist, top-down institutions’.
There is now discernable doubt around Westminster about the quality of much of think tank work, the influence of corporate funding, and how success is judged by insider access to politicians and media coverage generated. The think tank world began as a set of outsiders challenging the old establishment. In its place it has become part of the new establishment, defending an even more narrow, undemocratic and doctrinaire view of the world.
This can be seen in the journey of IPPR and Demos. Under Matthew Taylor, IPPR moved from a ‘think tank’ to a ‘speak tank’ which Taylor used as a platform to support his burgeoning career as a media commentator (something he has continued at Royal Society of the Arts). Post-Taylor, Nick Pearce attempted to bring a more serious and thoughtful research ethos, getting into issues which challenged the narrow consensus, and distance IPPR from the wreckage of New Labour. Now it is breaking new ground headed up by a job share: Lisa Harkin and Carey Oppenheim.
So far the world of think tanks has been at senior level a very boys’ environment. Demos post-Tom Bentley has had three directors: Madeleine Bunting, Catherine Fieschi, and now Richard Reeves, with neither woman lasting very long.
Think tanks have also become in recent years more about ‘mood’ than substance, providing ‘independent’ backdrops for politicians to position themselves. Thus, in the last few years, as the limits of New Labour centralisation grew apparent, think tanks grew excited about the possibilities of ‘localism’. This led to David Miliband coining the phrase ‘double devolution’ which the think tank world thought might lead to a realisation of the perils of over-centralism. No real policy change occurred at all as a result of this rhetoric and debate, but some in the centre managed to look better and look like they might consider doing something.
The Tories have caught up with this game under David Cameron. In the early days of his leadership, Cameron showed he was a different kind of Tory by giving an address to Demos, the centre-left think-tank. George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor, aiming to outflank New Labour gave a recent speech about ‘fairness’ without any real specifics. All of these examples: Miliband, Cameron and Osborne are about politicians using think tanks not for ideas or research, but to aid spin and perception.
The respective fortunes of think tanks do tell us something about the political weather. There is usually one or two ‘hot’ think-tanks: the Centre for Policy Studies and Adam Smith Institute in the 1980s, Demos, post-1997, and currently, Policy Exchange, David Cameron’s ‘favourite think-tank’, at least until its recent report on the failure of regeneration of Northern English cities, which he called ‘barmy’ and ‘insane’. Policy Exchange are all by all accounts awash with money at the moment, whereas several of the centre-left think tanks are finding things harder.
It is true that Scotland has managed to create a policy environment around the Scottish Parliament without a think tank industry, with only one properly resourced think tank in operation for the last decade, Scottish Council Foundation, which has not had major influence on government despite its resources. The SNP have come to office without the support of a sympathetic think tank or the resources and networks to establish one, and so far it does not seem to have done them any harm.
The Welsh political environment has witnessed the work of the Institute of Welsh Affairs established by John Osmond. Northern Ireland in the crucial and sensitive transition period of the 1990s had Democratic Dialogue run by Robin Wilson, which ran out of funding when Northern Irish politics ‘normalised’ with the end of ‘the Troubles’.
There is something in the experience of the devolved nations and the absence of a think tank industry as new polity environments have emerged in each place. This is about the smallness of the political class in each, along with the ease of access and lack of corporate funding. It has long been a point of some political observers in Scotland to bemoan the absence of an infrastructure of competing think tanks thrashing out ‘new ideas’ and policies which sink or swim in the marketplace, but from where we sit now and the experience of UK think tanks, Scotland may have been blessed by this experience.
The Emergence of a New Establishment
The think tank industry is an increasingly narrow, incestuous one, emblematic of the lack of difference between the political parties, and shaped by a narrowing and professionalisation of politics, where similar ‘bright things’ inhabit Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, and the world of think tanks. These oscillate around Labour and Conservatives at Westminster and tend to ignore the Lib Dems, as this is about power, influence and who has the potential to form an administration, not the cerebral pursuit of ideas.
If we were to address think tanks through the lens they see policy, and ask who are they serving, we would find that the vested interests which gain, are the world of corporate interests, accountancy firms and lobbying. If we asked what ‘new ideas’ have they brought forward and advocated in the last decade or so which has benefited the way government and policy is enacted which have aided the general populace, the answer would be threadbare.
After the Thatcher revolution, the think tank industry became a means by which the political class outsourced policy and built a new anti-democratic way of consolidating the new consensus which emerged. The think tank industry is part of the new establishment which has arisen in the post-democratic order and it is even more self-interested and self-serving than the previous one, which while it had faults, was also influenced by ‘duty’ and ‘public service’.
The world of think tanks has spanned an environment of incestuousness, of the blurring of boundaries between government and business, which has resulted in bad policy and government, and the pushing of marketisation, privatisation and corporate influence into previously unheralded areas of public life.
We need to ask penetrating questions about whose interests have been aided by the emergence of this new order, who gains from its maintenance, and who is paying for and perpetuating its existence? What is required of progressives is to imagine how we think of policy and ideas beyond the conventional idea of think tanks.
How can we imagine a more rich, pluralist and democratic network of institutions which think about policy and ideas, and which challenge the orthodoxies of the last few decades and the corporate interests? This is not just a narrow British story, but one with global consequences and implications from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East and Far East, as the disciples of free-market dogma take their mantras around the globe.
In the UK and even more in the United States, this requires that we think about the kind of agencies and institutions which can nurture, nourish and support progressive values, and the kind of ‘think tanks’ which can challenge the prevailing order, alongside a plethora of other bodies from trade unions, NGOs, campaigning groups and the net.
Think Tanks as Part of the Post-Democratic Elite
The think tank revolution in the UK is a story of the decline of party, which can be seen in the dilution of party research departments. These had a proud record of developing party policies – the Conservative Research Department under Rab Butler played a huge role in Conservative rethinking in the 1940s and acceptance of the Attlee Government’s programme for example.
Nowadays, we can see across all the mainstream UK political parties the dislocation of party leaderships from their party structures, and their shift of attention towards the world of post-democratic elites, of which think tanks are a part. This leads towards the corporatisation of politics and the ultimate outsourcing: the privatisation of policy making.
We have already seen in the United States that think tanks have been better suited to the politics of the right-wing, and this looks like it might be proving to be the case in the UK as well. One explanation of the changing fortunes of think tanks is to see this as a mere cyclical phenomenon: with first the rise of the right, then the centre-left, and now, the centre-right, corresponding to political fortunes. This seems a superficial explanation, with more profound and deep-seated forces at work.
The recent model of UK think tanks has seen the centre-left copying a right-wing model. As Adam Curtis’ groundbreaking series ‘Century of the Self’ showed the Clinton/Blair approach of ‘focus group’ politics and triangulation did not build a new centre-left politics – giving a temporary advantage, but creating a powerless, disconnected citizenry. The same is true of think tanks.
Think tanks are more suited to the politics of the pro-business, corporate world of the right than the left. That is why the interesting work on the left is happening far away from the narrow world of Westminster and the conventional think tank.
Notes
1. Winners of Prospect’s Think Tank of the Year are: IPPR (twice), New Economics Foundation, the Centre for Economic Reform, New Local Government Network, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Policy Exchange.
2. It is also true that specialist think tanks such as the King's Fund and the Work Foundation have built up reputations for expertise in their respective areas. Therefore, this emerging critique may be more relevant about the limitations of the conventional, generalist think tank which has no specific expertise and only has its brand and wits to live on.
John McCain's convention gambit calls for culture war around the Sarah Palin pick. And now The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars. An option is forming. This is my attempt to describe it before her big speech in St. Paul.
“She’s from a small town, with small-town values — but apparently, that’s not good enough for some of the folks out there attacking her and her family. Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Washington talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.” —Fred Thompson addressing the Republican convention, Sep. 2, 2008.
John McCain’s convention gambit is a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ‘68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.
At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war can be fought to scale, as it were. The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars.
I have no idea if the ignition system will work; nor do I claim that “this is what they were thinking” when they made the decision to nominate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Other interpretations may turn out to be truer than mine. This is my look at the bets McCain and company seem to be placing. I am not recommending the strategy. I am not predicting it will succeed. I think it was improvised, like my description here.
The storm around Sarah Pailn overtakes the story of the Republican convention and merges with it, like a smaller but stronger company taking over a larger but troubled enterprise. Behind the storm a “wave narrative” builds as her appointment generates headlines on multiple fronts. The irresistible force of fact-fed controversy meets the immovable enthusiasm for Palin as cultural object: charismatic everywoman straight from the imaginary of conservative small town America.
* The basic strategy is: don’t fight the “crisis” narrative. Rather, do things that bring it on, and in that crisis re-divide the electorate hoping to grab the bigger half.
The evangelical wing, and other social conservatives are strongly moved by her candidacy. More and more of their commitment to McCain is vested in him through her. As Andrew Sullivan writes: “The emotions involved - especially among the Christianist base who have immediately bonded on purely religious and cultural terms with Palin - are epic.”
* The strategy: sell the epic version of her candidacy. Allow her to become bigger than McCain in narrative terms. And let the two mavericks together overawe the Republican party, a damaged brand.
Continued bad news on the investigation front adds further drama, new fact streams and more protagonists to the Sarah Palin story. As more comes out about the decision to name Sarah Palin to the ticket, it’s harder to see how anyone on the inside thought it McCain’s best choice for president-in-waiting.
* Strategy: Give no ground, pile on the praise for her performance in Alaska, pump up her governor’s experience to death-defying extremes, hope for theatrical confrontation with characters in the mainstream media who can star as the cosmopolitan elites in the sudden politics of resentment the convention has been driven to.
Bloggers and open platforms continue to publish riskier—and risque—material, some of it unfit for family consumption, some of it false, salacious and reckless, some of it true, relevant and damaging, a portion of which is picked up by the traditional press.
* Strategy: confound and collapse all distinctions between closed editorial systems (like the newsroom of the New York Times), open systems (like the blogging community DailyKos.com) and political systems, like the Democratic party and its activist wing. Whenever possible mix these up. Conflate constantly. Attack them all. Jump from one to the other without warning or thread. Sow confusion among streams and let that confusion mix with the resentment in a culture war atmosphere.
As more emerges about how the McCain camp made the decision, the appointment looks more and reckless, the decision rushed, the vetting inadequate. This leads to advanced jeering from the left, intense criticism in the press, damaging leaks from within the Republican party, fueling calls from within and without for Sarah Palin to remove herself.
* Strategy: stick with “she was fully vetted” no matter what comes out. People who don’t believe it are trying to bring down Palin’s historic candidacy; or they don’t accept that a conservative woman can be the one to break the glass ceiling. If some establishment Republicans are skeptical or trying to stop her, that’s good for the crisis narrative, and good for two maverick candidates.
Sarah Palin under intense pressure then gives a charismatic performance on Wednesday of convention week and wows much of America, outdrawing Obama in the ratings and sending a flood of cash to McCain and the GOP.
* Strategy: bingo, that’s your big break. A wave effect is unleashed by a stunning televised performance. It is shock and awe in the theater of the post-modern presidency.
Journalists watching all this keep saying to themselves: wait until she gets out on the campaign trail. Wait until she sits for those interviews with experienced reporters and faces a real press conference.
* Strategy: double down on defiance by never letting her answer questions, except from friendly media figures who have joined your narrative; like Cheney with Fox. No meet the press at all. No interviews of Palin with the DC media elite— at all. De-legitimate the ask. Break with all “access” expectations. Use surrogates and spokesmen, let them get mauled, then whip up resentment at their mistreatment. Answer questions at town halls and call that adequate enough.
Meanwhile, the investigation of her performance in Alaska puts more and more pressure on the Palin appointment as things come out that would ordinarily disqualify a candidate from consideration or cast doubt on her truthfulness in a grave way.
* Strategy: Comes from Bush, the younger. When realities uncovered are directly in conflict with prior claims, consider the option of keeping the claims and breaking with reality. Done the right way, it’s a demonstration of strength. It dismays and weakens the press. And it can be great theatre.
Not while Glenn Milne's writing.The dinner demonstrated that Costello has taken the Liberal Party hostage. And they love him for it. But in this case Costello is both hostage taker and saviour.
The central contradiction at the heart of this gala night was that it clearly showcased why Costello should be leading the Liberals and then offered no resolution as to how - or even whether - this would happen.
First, Tony Smith, Costello's former staffer and now the Opposition spokesman on education, recited his ex-boss's achievements in government: "Commonwealth debt eliminated, surpluses replaced deficits and funding freed up in key areas of national concern."
There followed a video of Costello's killer moments in parliament. The baby-faced shadow attorney-general destroying Ros Kelly's career over the sports rorts affair, an assault that shredded the credibility of the Keating government and presaged its defeat in the 1996 election. Through to his devastating ridicule of Peter Garrett selling out his core beliefs, replete with an imitation over the despatch box of the former Midnight Oil frontman's mechanical twitchings and a rendition of Beds Are Burning.
The ecstatic reaction of the faithful served to remind everyone of Costello's capacity to instantly turn the mood in parliament. The question hanging in the air was: What if it was him, rather than Brendan Nelson, sitting opposite Kevin Rudd?
...On the evidence of Friday night's cracker of a speech to the faithful, Costello still remains a riddle inside a question. The address was textured, by turns funny, warm, personal and packing a political punch. Having walked into the venue declaring the event neither a farewell nor a resurrection, "just a thank you", Costello observed that usually in politics you have to wait until your funeral to hear people say nice things about you.
