Almost as Much Fun as Beating Your Ex-Wife

BEATING HILLARY CLINTON. One of the interesting things about the Republican Party is the principled viciousness of right-wing activists and a lot of conservative voters. One such South Carolina conservative got down to the brass tacks about Hillary Clinton when she asked John McCain "how do we beat the bitch?" Talking Points Memo focuses on McCain's response to the name-calling as "an excellent question." But I think it's better to focus on the statement itself. What's striking about the statement is the powerfully off-hand quality of the woman's contempt for Hillary Clinton. In the video, "bitch" is not a stereotype of an unpleasant or overly aggressive woman or a term of opposition. Rather, the pejorative thrust of the conservative woman's use of the term in relation to Hillary Clinton was to treat Clinton as sub-human, as somebody who could not be imagined as equal in dignity to anybody in the room. What's "principled" about this kind of viciousness is the refusal to recognize Hillary Clinton as a worthwhile being. It was much like the principled refusal of slave owners and segregationists to recognize the humanity of black people. For this Republican woman, "bitch" was the female version of a racial epithet like the n-word.

In this context, the use of the term "beat the bitch" has an ambivalent meaning in the sentence as a whole. The primary connotation is to defeat Hillary but there's a strong secondary connotation of "beating" as in physically beating Hillary or in visiting upon her a humiliation and degradation that Hillary would deserve as a sub-human "bitch." The implied violence is captured by another person in the room who jokes that "she's talking about my ex-wife" and the idea of "beating my ex-wife." The implied violence deepens the racial analogy. Asking "how do we beat the bitch" is the functional equivalent of asking "how do we keep blacks in their place." Except that conservatives are not so nice as to use the term "black." And the implied answer to that question is "with all the violence we need."

GIULIANI'S APPEAL. As I've already mention, Talking Points Memo emphasized McCain's agreement with the questioner in calling the question an "excellent question." Actually, that's not the case. True, McCain did break up in laughter over the question. But he also made important symbolic gestures to reincorporate Hillary Clinton into symbolic humanity. Most significantly, he referred to Hillary by a name as "Sen. Clinton." By referring to her name, McCain brought the discussion out of the stock symbolism of bigotry and into a world where people can compete and disagree without dehumanizing to the nth degree. In that context, he could then talk about his respect for her and his respect for the Democratic Party despite his many disagreements.

But that probably wasn't the answer that McCain's questioner was looking for. To find the "right" right-wing answer, she's going to have to look at Rudy Giuliani. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudy Giuliani appeals to Republicans primarily because of his carefully calculated image of "confidence" and strength."

"It's all about leadership," says Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole's 1996 campaign but is unaffiliated this time around. "It's all about him being a tough guy who won't take c--- from anyone. Social conservatives have embraced this and have overlooked the traditional issues of life, marriage and the Second Amendment for the guy," Mr. Reed adds.

To be more precise, not taking "crap" means "dishing out a lot of crap" without apologizing for it. It means that Rudy is going to engage in a lot of insults and put-downs as ways to display his aggression. As Giuliani has shown with his fibs about health policy, he's not going to care much about care much about the accuracy of his claims and that he's especially not going to back down on any of his inaccurate claims. Like Bush, Giuliani will also refuse to disown the inevitable smear campaigns against Hillary and view them as "just politics."

And that's what Republican voters want to see. They want to see Republican candidates "beat" and humiliate Hillary Clinton as well as defeat her in the election. They want to "beat the bitch" with insults, innuendo, and smears and they want to feel good about the beatings they dish out to her.

And Giuliani is doing his best to project himself as the guy who's going to make Republicans feel good.


THE PROSPECT. To the extent that Giuliani or another Republican nominee refers his insults and innuendo to real missteps on the part of Hillary Clinton, they have a chance to succeed. But I don't think they're going to have that much self-discipline. Following the example of McCain's questioner, the Republicans will attempt to give Hillary Clinton a "beating." And I think that's going to backfire with a lot of women and moderate voters who are much more suspicious of the right than they are of Hillary.

Torture and Conservative Culture in America

Over the last couple of weeks, Matthew Yglesias has played around with the idea of that support for torture is becoming the over-arching priority for conservatives.

I wonder if there'll come a time when the editor of National Review circa 2038 wonders when it was, exactly, that the decision was made to make robust enthusiasm about torture a defining value of the American conservative movement.

I don't know why Yglesias treats torture as a strange belief for conservatives. It actually has a lot of roots in conservative culture. If the "freedom of authority" in relation to criminals is not the most important meaning of American freedom for conservatives, it's certainly close. That's one of the reasons why figures like John Wayne and movies like High Noon and the Dirty Harry series have iconic status among the right. That stress on the freedom for authority dovetailed with conservative racism became especially important for conservatives after the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement and the race riots of the Sixties. Once the rights of blacks were recognized, conservatives believed that blacks needed to be more closely supervised than ever.

As the racism of the right has been extended from African-Americans to Muslims, the appeal of authoritarian abuses like waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and other forms of torture has also grown.

Support for torture also fits well with conservative masculinity. As most recently evidenced in Rudy Giuliani's campaign persona, conservative masculinity puts a lot of emphasis on breaking the rules on telling the truth, corruption, and the like. Just as killing somebody used to be an initiation right for Mafia members, defying rules has become a test of right-wing manhood. In the case of defying the rules governing interrogation, conservatives get a special kick out of flouting various kinds of "liberal" laws and regulations. In this sense, supporting torture is a way to oppose liberalism as well.

Conservative support for torture is a kind of self-isolating gesture. Conservatives are deeply disappointed in American society for its lack of support for the Iraq War in particular and lack of support for the conservative political agenda in general. From the right-wing point of view, American society just isn't good enough, moral enough, or tough enough for conservatism. Supporting is a way for conservatives to feel morally superior as they isolate themselves from the moral sense of the anti-conservative majority in the United States.

Supporting torture is a way for conservatives to give the finger to American society in general. Given the obscene character of torture practices like waterboarding, conservative support for torture works well as an obscene gesture.

Turning Bush Incompetence to American Advantage

Has anybody noticed how well some of our enemies are doing compared to some of our friends.

Take Pakistan for instance. Pakistan has been our strategic partner and ally since 9-11. We've sent them $10 bill in aid and Condoleeza Rice gives Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf her best advice. But it's all backfired horribly. Taliban-style militants have begun to fan out from their base in the northwestern tribal areas, substantial parts of the military apparatus support "Islamo-fascism," and the crisis between Musharaff and the opposition has gotten worse every day since he declared a state of emergency.

Perhaps treating the Pakistanis as a friend and ally wasn't such a good idea.

Meanwhile, our enemies in Iran seem to be doing very well. The Bush administration may have declared Iran to be part of the axis of evil, but they've also have overthrown hostile regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The ruling ayatollahs have also choked off the moderate opposition that developed during the early part of the decade and skillfully employed President Ahmadinejad as a kind of court jester to draw attention away from the real power. Unlike Pakistan, Iran has clients in the form of Hezbollah and the Shiite parties in Iraq and all of those clients are doing very well at the moment.

It doesn't seem that treating Iran as our enemy--even our chief enemy--has worked out so well either.

Of course, the underlying problem is Bush administration incompetence rather than Iran and Pakistan. It was as a result of Condoleeza Rice's pressure that Musharaff decided to bring back the populist former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who is now galvanizing opposition to the state of emergency. I bet Musharaff is kicking himself for following American advice on that one.

Likewise, the Iranians were smart enough after 9-11 to recognize that the U. S. was going to go after the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Wanting to help us along in eliminating their own enemies, the Iranians made a number of friendly gestures on the intelligence front. In their hubris however, the Bush administration wanted to invade Iran as well as Iraq and brushed the Iranian offers aside. As a result, the Iranians benefited enormously from our war in Iraq without doing besides positioning themselves to benefit from our failure as well.

But what can we do now?

My suggestion is that people in the U. S. just assume the incompetence of the Bush administration as we discuss foreign policy. "Given" Bush administration incompetence, perhaps it's best that the United States withdraw our ambassador from Pakistan , and hit them with sanctions. That way, the Pakistanis would no longer be getting our lousy advice and our money would no longer be corrupting their politicians and business people. We could also declare Pakistan to be "the new frontier of evil" and threatening to bomb them if they don't turn over bin Laden. In that way, we could help stabilize Pakistan by giving them an "enemy" they can unite around. And just to show we're really serious, we could place some carriers outside their major ports and conduct extensive war games. Nothing like provocative displays of aggression to help a fractured country become more united.

As far as Iran goes, the best way for the Bush administration to undermine the regime in Tehran is to make them our new friends. Set up a hotline between Condi Rice and their leadership so they'll always have access to her wisdom. Talk about looking into their hearts and seeing soulmates. Send them billions of dollars in military and economic aid. Invite the Iranians to station troops to protect Shiite shrines in Iraq. The Bush administration should make the Iranians their new best buddies, friends, and pals.

If a full-court press of Bush friendship doesn't destroy Iran, nothing will.

Rudy Giuliani, Ubermensch

One of the interesting things about the indictment of Rudy Giuliani crony Bernard Kerik is the way this Giuliani-Kerik hug picture is telling the story. This picture not only does its primary job of showing Giuliani and Kerik together, it also shows the nature of their relationship. Rudy Giuliani was "the man" and Bernard Kerik was "his guy." Giuliani was hugging Kerik as a gesture of patriarchal domination. It was a nod from Rudy Giuliani that had made Bernard Kerik a public figure in the first place and Giuliani was reminding Kerik with a little hug that he still very much had Giuliani's favor. He was also reminding Kerik that he was Giuliani's guy rather than his own guy. As the head of the Riker's Island prison and police commissioner, Kerik was a reflection of "the mayor" and it was part of his job description to be a great deal smaller than the outsized, ubermensch persona Giuliani was defining for himself.

How big does Rudy Giuliani think he is. Big enough to get away with appointing Bernard Kerik to the position of police commissioner despite knowing that Kerik had mob ties. Here's John McCain's campaign manager:

After being briefed on Kerik's ties to organized crime, Giuliani named him chief of the New York Police Department. Without any further vetting, Giuliani asked him to join his security consulting firm. Despite obvious ethical problems, Giuliani went so far as to personally recommend Kerik for the top job at the Department of Homeland Security.

This is one of the key elements in Rudy Giuliani's case for the Republican nomination as it should be understood. From Giuliani's point of view, he is the best person to protect the United States from terrorism because he is willing to do anything to protect the United States and he has the nerve and the ability to make it work. In ignoring Kerik's mob ties, Giuliani demonstrates that he doesn't have to care about what anybody things of does. Giuliani was as completely unconcerned with Kerik's mob ties as he's been with the niceties of Iowa campaigning, kowtowing to the religious right, or hiring blacks and women for his campaign staff. Embracing Bernard Kerik means that he would also be willing to stick it to the Soviet Union and China, attack Iran, ignore Congress and the Courts, and engage in wholesale torture. Republican voters want the torture as a substantive matter but they also want a presidential candidate who is just as willing as Dick Cheney to break all the rules of domestic politics and international law. And they want somebody who looks like he's smarter than George Bush when he's doing it.

In other words, Republican voters will want somebody with Dick Cheney's ideology and Bill Clinton's competence. And Rudy is portraying himself as that guy.

November: The Second Month of Christmas

Hey Fans! I forgot Nov. 1, the official beginning of the second month of Christmas.

"In the Second Month of Christmas, my true love sent to me . . . "

There's a tree with a red tinsel string sitting on the piano at the Walmart Church of God just outside town. No creche scenes though. No Jesus on crosses either. There's even more stuff at Walmart where the good Christmas-y folks there have a couple of Santas on sleighs on the roof as well as a whole display of lighted Santas where they usually have garden implements. Krogers has its Christmas cards out. Mail those Christmas cards by Thanksgiving folks.

There's even a Christmas movie--Fred Klaus--playing at the local one screen theater.

The only blight on Christmas is that well-known Grinch, Mrs. RSI. For some reason, she didn't want us to put up our Christmas decorations tonight.

Charlie Weis-ism Moves to Kentucky

There's a specter haunting Kentucky, the specter of Charlie Weis. Weis is the football coach that Notre Dame hired away from the NFL to replace the unpopular black coach Tyrone Willingham. Breaking traditions of giving its coaches 5 year windows of opportunity, Notre Dame fired Willingham after Willingham failed to sign enough five star recruits and muddled through a 6-5 season deemed intolerably mediocre. Weis was supposed to be the miracle worker who jump-started the return to no. 1 and he did well for a couple of years with Willingham's recruits. But Notre Dame is now no. 1 as in the being the single worst team in the NCAA Bowl Sub-Division. They're 1-8, they're offense is so bad it might be ranked 111, and Willingham's "mediocrity" looks like an unattainable goal right now.

Billie Gillespie, the men's basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, looks a lot like Charlie Weis this morning. Like Weiss, Gillespie was brought in to replace an unpopular black coach who wasn't satisfying fan demands to get to the Final Four every year. Like Weiss, Gillespie was heavily hyped as a "24-7" basketball coach who wasn't married, didn't date, and had the fastest texting thumbs in the recruiting universe. Armed with a couple of high-profile freshmen, Gillespie was supposed to get UK back to the promised land fast.

But UK lost to mid-major Gardner-Webb by 16 last night and they looked badly out of joint doing it. All of a sudden, they look closer to the bottom of the wilderness than the promised land. All of a sudden, the much hyped Gillespie looks a lot like he's in a very bad place--just as bad as Charlie Weiss.

Rudy Climbs on the Scandal Machine, Updated

It looks like Rudy Giuliani crony Bernard Kerik is going to be indicted tomorrow "on a list of charges that include tax fraud, corruption and conspiracy." Having been a successful prosecutor, Giuliani doesn't understand how scandal works for people on the wrong side of the scandal machine.

Unfortunately for Giuliani, it's going to be almost as painful for his presidential campaign as it's going to be for Kerik himself.

When Kerik is indicted, "Giuliani Pal Bernie Kerik" images will be all over television for at least 2 or 3 days as the American nation gets to see Kerik walking too and from the court house, mug shots, and pictures of Kerik with a smiling Giuliani. After that, there will be periodic surges of news from the legal process. Detailed reports of the pre-trial manuevering, jury selection, and conflicts over evidence will make Kerik's lawyer a household name. Then there will be the trial, the verdict, and the sentencing if there's a guilty verdict.

And at every stage, the primary question being asked will be "what does the Kerik case say about Giuliani's judgment?" Old scandals concerning Albert Nouima will resurface and more recent scandals like the Abramoff case and the fired federal prosecutors will come back to mind.

Bernie Kerik's indictment could be a big problem for Rudy. At the very least, Giuliani is in for some difficult times as he steps into the Scandal Machine.

Potted Plant Wins in Kentucky

With 97% of the vote in, Steve Beshear was ahead 58.9% to 41.1% for incumbent Republican Ernie Fletcher. That 17% margin had been pretty steady since the first weeks after the gubernatorial primaries in the spring.

It's worth mentioning that Beshear has a lot of faults in common with the national democratic leadership. He's about as colorless as a politician can get (I met him this spring), relatively conservative, and basically risk averse. The same could be said about Pelosi and Reid after they caved into Bush over Iraq war funding. In many ways, the Democratic congressional leadership has been potted plants ever since. That's the case with Beshear as well. He was there during the campaign, he was working hard, he didn't look particularly good or bad, and he didn't do much on his own. Actually, that sounds like a lot of Democrats

Yet Beshear still won handily. I believe two things kept Beshear 17% ahead throughout the election campaign. There was the fact that the Republicans were somewhat divided as a result of Ann Northup's primary challenge to Fletcher. More important, opinion hardened against Fletcher early as evidenced by Fletcher's Bush-like approval ratings. Partisan Democrats grew more committed to replacing Fletcher, weak Democrats decided to vote their party, and swing voters swung to Beshear without thinking too much about Beshear himself. It was an election that a potted Democrat could win and Beshear was the right plant at the right time.

The question for the 2008 presidential election is whether a potted Democrat like Steve Beshear will be able to win the presidency. The lesson of Kentucky is that there is going to be a hard core anti-Republican vote among weak Democrats and Independents. A potted plant Democrat might not be able to win against somebody as tough and smart as Giuliani, but it might not take much more than a potted plant either.

IN KENTUCKY, VOTE BESHEAR

McCain Takes Shot at Rudy's Cod

One of the hallmarks of Rudy Giuliani's primary campaign is that he's willing to say just about anything to puff up his image as an uber-manly tough guy. Where Mitt Romney panders on social conservatism, Giuliani panders on uber-masculinity.

This brings us to the issue of codpieces. If Renaissance codpieces are an ideal representation of symbolic manliness, Giuliani's daily put-downs of Hillary, advocating attacks on Iran and standing tall for torture can best be understood as efforts to pump up his political codpiece while also putting his ample "cod" on display.

Last Friday, Giuliani sought to "show a little cod" by claiming that he knew what was at stake in torturing al-Qaeda suspects because he himself had Mafia suspects tortured in New York while he was either a federal attorney or a Mayor.

Intensive questioning works. If I didn't use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of Mafia guys running around New York right now, and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is.

But last night, John McCain deflated Rudy a little by calling him on the ridiculousness of the comparison between prosecuting Mafia guys in New York and global terrorists.

When someone says waterboarding is similar to harsh interrogation techniques used against the mafia in New York City, they do not have enough experience to lead our military.

Score one hit to Rudy's cod for McCain. Maybe he should do that more often.

Showing Some Cod, Revised

Hillary Rebounds Quickly--Although Hillary Clinton did not respond well to Tim Russert's wedge-sniffing question about drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, she recovered quickly. In short order, Hillary's staff complained about "piling on" by male Democratic candidates and then Hillary herself gave a speech at Wellesley College (her alma mater) focusing on the pathbreaking nature of her status as the first female contender for the presidency. By the end of the week, the wobble had been forgotten in the deluge of commentary on Hillary "playing the gender card." Hillary needs to be stronger when challenged by people like Russert, but she proved effective at changing the terms of the post-debate debate. To the contrary, John Edwards is still suffering from his $400 haircut.

The Rally Around Hillary Effect. The most surprising post-debate development was that liberal bloggers like Matthew Yglesias, Digby, Melissa McEwan, and Matt Stoller all rallied around Hillary. This was a first for the liberal blogging crowd, all of whom are considerably to the left of Hillary Clinton and have been experimenting with giving their support to Obama (Bias alert: RSI endorsed Hillary in March). Defending Hillary's right to be proud of being a trailblazer, the liberal bloggers united to stress the fact that male candidates have been playing the gender card in every presidential election since Washington's 1792 campaign.

Digby's discussion of the politics of masculinity since Reagan is worth quoting at length for its stress on "metaphorical crotch measuring."

And now I will be eagerly looking forward to [Chris Matthews] and the rest of the commentators calling out the entire Republican field for also playing the "gender" card as they've been doing for the past few decades. Indeed, the entire Republican campaign strategy can be said to be one big gender card --- the only people they believe matter in this country are delicate, insecure creatures who are so sensitive that they have to be pampered and pandered to like a bunch of overfed princes who like to play cowboy and don't want to share their favorite binky. Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn't considered playing "the gender card." It's just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who've been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

Liberal bloggers are far from all-powerful (something which I deeply regret), but it's still a plus for Hillary that the left blogosphere is at least somewhat committing itself to defending her candidacy. There was some worry that people on the left would be unenthused about a Hillary candidacy. But the Hillary campaign may prove to be a flag that the left can rally around in the general election.

Showing Some Cod. It's worthwhile to go deeper into the the whole idea of "codpiece" politics proposed by Digby. It may turn out that the language of cod is most useful for discussing the politics of masculinity. Cod-pieces are not penises. A cod-piece is a clothing device that represents a man's penis and testicles (or "package") as being larger than they would be otherwise. It's basically "male enhancement." Macho politics functions in the same way. What Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and countless other politicians have done is advertise their attitudes, accomplishments, or life in general as a super-enhanced maleness, or fantastically large cod-piece. Instead of thinking of politics in terms of penis-size, it might be useful to think of politics in terms of inflatable codpieces or, to be more concise, "cods." The male candidate who can inflate his codpiece the most is the most manly man in the race which is why candidates work so hard to inflate their codpiece selves while deflating the cods of their opponents through negative advertising, rumor mongering, push polls, and other tactics. Because it's so oriented toward symbolic display, contemporary macho politics is mostly about "showing some cod."

The Hillary Effect. Given the "artificial" nature of cods, women are just capable of showing a little cod, or a lot of cod, as men. Hillary Clinton is a good example of this. There isn't much doubt that Hillary is at least just as tough, just as dominant, just as shrewd, and just as tenacious as the male Democratic candidates. In fact, she has a reputation for having more of these qualities than any of the men she's running against. In other words, Hillary displays even more cod than Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, and Biden. Even worse, Hillary can play "the gender card" of being a woman who is pioneering women's history in the United States. Even if Obama and the rest began to claim more for their codpieces, they still cannot claim that they could be the first female president in American history. In this sense, Hillary isn't just "playing the gender card" against her Democratic opponents. She's squeezing them in a gender vice in which she monopolizes the symbolism of both masculinity and femininity.

Opposing Hillary. Thinking of Hillary in terms of displaying cod also gives us some insight into the Rudy Giuliani approach for opposing Hillary if he wins the Republican nomination. In attacking Hillary on an almost daily basis, Giuliani is not only trying to distance himself from his Republican opponents, he's announcing that his general election campaign will be a non-stop, intimidating, even grotesque display of his cod. If nothing else, Giuliani will seek to convince voters that he can out-cod Hillary to such an enormous extent that she will be reduced to being "the female candidate" and Rudy will have a decent shot at winning.

How should Hillary respond. Obviously, Hillary's will need to "man-up" for the general election if she's going to beat Rudy Giuliani. That means dishing out as much as she's taking, answering his put-downs with put-downs of her own, and showing that she's just as much cod as Rudy has. However, Rudy's cronyism, corruption, refusal to countenance dissent, bizarre Mafia-like rituals, cross-dressing, and three marriages provide a lot of material for the cod deflation of negative advertising. Hillary's negative advertising will have a shot at deflating Giuliani to such an extent that all his furious pumping will not be able to reinflate his cod. In the final analysis, Giuliani's cod might turn to be just a fish.

Neither Work Horse Nor Show Horse

The basic distinction between U. S. Senators is between "work horses" and "show horses." The current archetypes of "showhorses" are guys like John McCain and Joe Lieberman who get themselves on television at every possible opportunity. Hillary Clinton was destined to be a "showhorse" because of her celebrity status, but was determined to earn a reputation as a "workhorse" as well.

What about Fred Thompson? According to Nancy Benac, he

was no Senate workhorse during his eight years there, but as a committee chairman he investigated fundraising abuses during the Clinton re-election campaign.

But he didn't work hard enough to be a "showhorse" either. Maybe Fred Thompson just isn't much of a horse.

Right-Wing Misogyny and Racism Made Clear

I found this very concise statement of the misogyny and racism of conservative writers in today's Kevin McCullough article for TownHall.com:

Women - vote irrationally. Some women will be offended by the observation but most will agree, women do not vote according to what they know. They tend instead to vote based on intuition. They get "a feeling" about a candidate and that's what they trust. Hillary has understood this better than anyone else. Her consistent campaign "story" of "90 year old women 'remembering when they didn't have the right to vote' and 'determined to live until they see a woman president' has been thoroughly mocked by talk radio for its lack of believability. Which is true - no one believes Hillary is being swarmed by a bunch silver-haired Susan B. Anthonys. But talk radio is missing the point. Thirty year old women don't care if it's true, it makes them feel like they are part of history and for that reason alone "its time" for them to vote for a woman. Smart women understand this as well. Ann Coulter recently confided to me off air - that she would gladly give up her vote because she is tired of using her informed knowledge of candidate selection being overridden by four to five other women who could not even name all of the candidates running for President, much less identify what they stand for. The only group less rational in its voting patterns than women are African Americans who consistently elect people who keep them poor, keep them uneducated, and keep them killing their own. It should be noted - Hillary does exceptionally well with that demographic as well.

McCullough must have had an extremely difficult time deciding which group was more irrational-- women or African-Americans. I'm surprised he didn't find a way to work in gays.

But then again, McCullough is not a Republican candidate for governor of Kentucky.

"Showing Some Cod"

Liberal bloggers are answering the "Hillary plays the gender card" meme by replying that men have been playing the gender card for more than 200 years.

Playing the gender card? Yeah, it's been done, for every single President in history. I'm going to enjoy watching the male spasms of cowardice unleashed if Clinton wins, as she's sworn in and represents the more than half the population that is interrupted on a regular basis by men. It's probably the only part of the Clinton Presidency that I'll like, but it's not a small deal.

Digby has a pungent account of post-1980 gender politics as well.

So true. And now I will be eagerly looking forward to [Chris Matthews] and the rest of the commentators calling out the entire Republican field for also playing the "gender" card as they've been doing for the past few decades. Indeed, the entire Republican campaign strategy can be said to be one big gender card --- the only people they believe matter in this country are delicate, insecure creatures who are so sensitive that they have to be pampered and pandered to like a bunch of overfed princes who like to play cowboy and don't want to share their favorite binky.

Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn't considered playing "the gender card." It's just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who've been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

It's worthwhile to go a little deeper into the the whole idea of "codpiece" politics. It should be remembered that cod-pieces are not penises. To the contrary, a cod-piece is a clothing device that represents a man's penis as being larger than it would be otherwise. It's a fashion version of "male enhancement." Macho politics functions in the same way as a codpiece. What Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and countless other politicians have done is advertise their attitudes, accomplishments, or life in general as an enhanced maleness, or extremely large cod-piece. Instead of thinking of politics in terms of penis-size, it might be useful to think of politics in terms of inflatable codpieces or cods. The male candidate who can credibly inflate his own codpiece the most is the most manly man. That's why political campaigns are so much about all the candidates seeking to inflate their codpiece selves while deflating the cods of their opponents through negative advertising, rumor mongering, push polls, and other tactics.

Because it's so oriented toward symbolic display, contemporary macho politics is more about "showing some cod" than "metaphorical crotch measuring" as Digby suggests.

Dems Should Hire Benazir Bhutto's Writer

Benazir Bhutto had some tough words for Pervez Musharaff after he declared a state of emergency today in Pakistan.

“The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists.”

The Democrats in the United States should be so plain spoken.

Although the Bush administration can't be thought of as a dictatorship (at least not yet), they have the same kind of symbiotic relationship with al-Qaida as the Musharaff regime in Pakistan. Just as al-Qaida needs the war crimes of the Bush administration to justify its continued existence, the Bush administration needs al-Qaida and "Islamo-fascism" to justify its abuse of the Constitution and law in the United States.

The Bush administration needs global terrorism just as much as global terrorism needs the Bush administration.

How to Stump Ann Coulter

According to Chris Nelson of Pop and Politics, Ann Coulter was stumped by friendly questions from a conservative audience about how to define the "fascism" part of Islamo-fascism and what to do about Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

When asked “Why is it that the media and the president are turning a blind eye to the Assyrian population in Iraq?” The Assyrians are the indigenous Christians of Iraq. Coulter: “Oh yes, I’ve heard about this and I have no idea. I do not know what the answer is.”Asked twice by a reporter for the university newspaper to define fascism, she floundered. The first time she offered a roundabout response that mentioned Communism, Nazism, and nihilism, saying it was the “total control of people’s lives” and so in this respect “every government is to some extent fascist.” As unsatisfied as everyone else in the room, the reporter, reminding her that she was invited to speak for Islamo-Fascism week, pressed again for a definition. Visibly uncomfortable or perturbed, she told him to consult a dictionary.

Maybe the best way to stump Ann Coulter is to ask her seemingly puff-ball questions or offer her faux compliements that force her to reveal the empty cocktail dress behind her punch lines.

Personally, I've always wanted to congratulate Coulter on being a virgin. After all, Coulter is a conscientious Christian who's never been married. One has to assume that she's been saving her virginity for that "special man" when he comes along.

As they say, "true love waits."

Rudy Giuliani: The Man They Thought George Bush Was

Given that Fred Thompson's campaign is a dud, Rudy Giuliani has to be considered a marginal favorite for the Republican presidential nomination.

The main theme of Giuliani's day to day tactics is to establish that he's the ubermacho guy in the Republican sense of the word. That means that Giuliani is working to project an aura of dominating the space around him--meeting every issue with a studied show of aggresive "will," formulating every issue as an ideological confrontation, and refusing to bend in the slightest to either friends or enemies. Giuliani's daily put-downs of Hillary Clinton--today Giuliani was after Hillary both for refusing to be pinned down on a position and being wrong about everything at the same time-- aren't just playing to the Republican base in terms of blasting their least-loved Democrat, it's about establishing domination over Hillary's political persona. The same is the case with Giuliani's threats to attack Iran, his attacks on European health care systems, and his defense of torture.

The point of all this manuevering isn't the right health policy or American national security. The for Giuliani point is to be as aggressive as he can be on a daily basis.

Of course, George Bush and Dick Cheney were trying to accomplish the same thing, failed miserably, and paved the way for a Democratic victory in 2006. But Rudy is portraying himself as the more manly man the current administration. Where Bush was a failed oilman before moving up the political ladder, Rudy Giuliani was a spectacularly successful prosecutor. Where Bush can't speak English without looking stupid, Rudy Giuliani can talk on the fly in a coherent and informed way. Where George Bush is studies in his ignorance, Rudy Giuliani reads magazines like City Journal in New York. Giuliani's spokesperson drove home the difference between Rudy and Bush in relation to Rudy's reading about health care issues.

The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an
intellectually engaged human being."

In this sense, Rudy Giuliani is promising Republicans that he'll not only be as tough-talking a conservative as he can possibly be, but that he'll also be smart enough and competent enough to make conservatism work.

Needless to say, nobody's that smart.

Bellying Up to the Political Bar

RUSSERT THE WEDGE SNIFFER. Everybody thought that the main theme of last night's Democratic debate was the attacks on Hillary Clinton. But nobody noticed that Tim Russert was really looking for wedge issues that would be difficult for any Democrat to answer. Russert's question about illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses was a classic. The Republicans could care less about governing and wouldn't give second thought to having tens of thousands of unlicensed illegal immigrants on the road. Only concerned about "looking tough," Republican candidates would reject any most non-law enforcement approaches to immigrant issues out of hand. For the Democrats, the symbolic issues are more complicated because of their identification with Hispanic voters. Likewise, they would want to "do something" about the governance issues related to the illegal immigrants who are already here. By posing the driver's license issue, Russert put the Democrats in a bind and he did that all night.

HILLARY SUPPORTER FOR ATTACKING HILLARY. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Russert was sniffing out the wedge issues and I'm all for the attacks on Hillary by Obama and Edwards. Face it, Hillary needs the work. She needs to be able to respond to attacks in ways that defend her position, segue back to her main campaign themes, and take some shots at Rudy Giuliani. Last night, she didn't get those things done in the Philadelphia debate. She needs to get better before facing off with the Republican nominee and the only way she's going to get better is if she's forced to respond to attacks from her opponent. I support Hillary's candidacy, but it would help her campaign enormously if she was attacked more often and more forcefully by her opponents.

THE DEMS STILL DON'T GET IT WITH MUKASEY. There are times when one has to think that the Democratic leadership is not that sharp. The Democrats think the question over whether Mukasey is going to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture is primarily a question of enforcing the law. Is Mukasey going to enforce the law or is he going to accept all of the Bush administration's vacuous reasoning for avoiding the law. But there are other questions for the Bush administration, especially the question of legal jeopardy. If Mukasey acknowledges the criminality of waterboarding, everybody involved in the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation techniques" from 9-12 2001 onward is vulnerable to prosecution. That includes the interrogators, their supervisors, anybody who consulted with them, and policy-makers all the way up the line and George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales in particular. Mukasey seems to recognize the issue.

MICHAEL MUKASEY, U.S. Attorney General-Designate: ... I'm sorry, I can't discuss, and I think it would be irresponsible of me to discuss particular techniques with which I am not familiar, when there are people who are using coercive techniques and who are being authorized to use coercive techniques, and for me to say something that is going to put their careers or freedom at risk simply because I want to be congenial. I don't think it would be responsible of me to do that.

But it seems that the Democrats don't see it. What the Dems need to do is "belly up to the bar" and get Mukasey to recognize that being the next Attorney General means investigating the Bush administration and the American military and intelligence apparatus for violations of the whole range of American and international laws forbidding torture. If Mukasey doesn't recognize his responsibility here, he shouldn't be confirmed.

Late Memo to Cheney's Racist Pals

Look out America. Dick Cheney went hunting again. Last week, the Clove Valley Gun and Rod Club in upstate Union Vale, NY released some of their pet pheasants so the Veep could get some easy kills last week. That way Cheney could feel like a real hunter without shooting other members of the hunting party.

. . . some Dutchess County residents blasted the vice president for taking part in what they called a canned hunt. Farm-bred pheasants were released on the preserve 24 hours before Cheney arrived, making them easy targets for the hunting party. "The way they hunt, I'm not fond of," said Linda Smith, 52, who runs a local preschool. "It's not what I would call a real sportsmanlike activity."

In Cheney's case, bird hunting is more an exercise in building self-esteem than hunting skills.

Not that there's anything wrong with building self-esteem. Needless to say, I'd prefer actual merit. But I'll take self-esteem over the macho preening of Dick Cheney and other right-wingers any day.

It seems, however, that the members of the Clove Valley Gun and Rod Club haven't gotten the latest memo on racist paraphernalia. It appears that some enterprising soul took down the Club's Confederate flag and put it in a shed before the Vice-President's visit. That would have been an embarrassment to the Vice-President even if it wasn't an embarrassment to the club itself.

Still, it's somewhat of a surprise that the club hasn't gotten the memo that Confederate flags have been replaced by nooses as the trendy symbol of white racism.

Perhaps they gave Cheney a noose as a going away present.

Poverty and Education in the South

With rising poverty rates, more than 50% of public school students in the South are now considered poor. In Kentucky, it's 50% on the nose.

So, what's being done about it? More early childhood education.

One Southern strategy gaining momentum is strengthening early-childhood education. In at at least 12 Southern states, including Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi, the number of 4-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs or Head
Start is greater than the number of 4-year-olds in poverty, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

I just heard a story about Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Steve Breshear wanting to put an emphasis on pre-school education as well. That's good as far as it goes, but the positive affects of pre-school can be lost unless schools make education more appealing to poor children than the alternatives. From my experience in Kentucky, I have some observations about the disadvantages of poor kids compared to middle class and upper-middle class kids in relation to education. The parents of poor kids tend not to push their children to excel in school as much as higher-income parents. They also have less in the way of books, magazines, computers, musical diversity, and other "educational" items in their homes. Likewise, the parents of poor kids don't take the same advantage of local cultural events like the Cave Run Storytelling Festival in this area and don't take the same kinds of "educational" trips to museums and historical sites out of their states either.

But the rubber meets the road when children encounter alternative "anti-education" cultures in middle school. In my part of Kentucky, students encounter a variety of peer sub-cultures that oppose educational values. Those sub-cultures range include the sex and drug sub-culture, the local lake, cruising, and fishing and can also include sports and religion. The question is whether the family environment reinforces the cultural values of education or whether the family environment reinforces anti-education peer values. With poorer families in Kentucky, the overriding value on family solidarity often works in opposition to a focus on education. It also might be the case that poorer families don't have the credibility with their children required to counter-act the anti-educational thrust of many peer groups.

If public schools in high-poverty areas like the South want to keep poorer kids on track, they need to figure out ways to better counter-act peer cultures. They need to hire better teachers, buy better educational materials, do more field trips, and in general work out strategies for making school activities more imperative. All of this takes a lot of money and well-spent money at that. Of course, there are charismatic teachers like Jaime Escalante who can work miracles on their own. Like most people, however, most teachers don't have that kind of talent, drive, and commitment. Ultimately, communities and states have to decide to invest the kinds of resources in education that are needed to induce poorer kids to keep up.

But this is where the South most fails it's children. Instead of spending more money on education than the wealthier states, the South spends less.

In 2000, Mississippi's highest per pupil expenditures were $5,631. Connecticut's lowest per pupil expenditure for the same year was $8,030.

This is the opposite of what it should be. The education of poor children will continue to lag in the South as long as the region is not spending significantly more per pupil than a wealthier state like Connecticut.

Rudy Unbound or Bound

THE RUDY CEILING? The current argument against Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican presidential nomination is that his support has peaked at 25-30%. From this perpsective, either Romney or Thompson will emerge as the sole candidate of social conservatives and grab a majority of convention delegates.

LITTLE SLIVERS OF HIS OWN. I'm not buying this argument though. As I've noted before, Giuliani is running the smartest of the Republican presidential campaigns. Today, he has a nice manuever in relation to Hillary Clinton idea of sending emissaries abroad after her election to let other countries know that the era of "cowboy democracy" is over. Instead of taking the "hard road" of defending Bush's foreign policy, Giuliani limited himself to the easily recognizable point that such an action would be inappropriate as long as George Bush was still president.

Given the savviness of the Giuliani campaign, it's more likely that he will pick up significant slivers of support from failed McCain and Huckabee campaigns that will push him up around 34-35%.

That's a number from which Giuliani can beat either Romney or Fred Thompson. The major threat to Giuliani is that Mitt Romney would develop a lot of momentum after wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan. However, just as Giuliani's lack of social conservativism puts a ceiling on his appeal, Romney's phoniness will limit his ability to convert early victories into broad support. It's not that Romney is any more of a phoney than Ronald Reagan, the current George Bush, or any other presidential candidate. It's just that Romney doesn't have the actor's skill of projecting authenticity. As a result, it looks to me that Romney ultimately will cap out in the high twenties.

That leaves Fred Thompson. Thompson has always looked like a regional candidate from the South and he still looks like a regional candidate. There was a time when I thought that gave Thompson an edge because of the size of the Greater South including the Old Confederacy, the border states of Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, Oklahoma, much of Indiana, and Southern Ohio.

But Thompson's presidential campaign hasn't shown enough in the way of planning, coherence, or energy to take advantage of Thompson's "natural" advantages. Southerners have a lot of regional loyalty, but not enough for a candidate as bad as Fred Thompson to hold the region.

The question then is who is going to pick up Thompson's support after Fred realizes that running for president isn't any more fun than being in the Senate.

In a lot of ways, it will be a toss-up. The conservativism of Southern Republicans has two sides, the social conservatism of the religious right and the militarism of the macho good-ole-boys, racists and warmongers. In a two-man contest, Romney will try to work the social conservatism while Giuliani plays up the militarism.

But right now, I would give Rudy an edge just because his campaign is better at seizing the initiative and taking advantage of small openings than Romney's.

A Wrinkle in the Iran War Strategy

One of the likely permutations of a Bush/Cheney attack on Iran is that it would threaten the whole system of cooperation between the Bush administration and the al-Maliki government in Iraq.

But as this NYTimes article on the Iraqi government's reluctance to cooperate with American policy in Anbar province reminds us, the Bush administration and the al-Maliki government have not been in harmony since the beginning of the surge campaign.

Perhaps the Bushies might be willing to cut their ties with al-Maliki altogether.

Ron Paul and the Fred Barnes Miracle

Although I am an atheist, I've never denied the presence of the miraculous. How could I? Look at this beautiful world. What were the odds of such a planet being formed out of the big bang? Miraculously high!

And now I have the pleasure to announce that I've been witness to yet another miracle--a miracle that is not nearly as significant as the formation of a life-sustaining planet but something that is awesome to behold nonetheless.

Drum roll please! In what has to count as a journalistic miracle, Fred Barnes has had an idea.

Yes, that Fred Barnes--the guy who's all over the media even though nobody can quite remember what he ever says or writes because it blends in so perfectly with what everybody else is saying and writing. A predictable cipher of the conventional wisdom, Barnes has landed gigs as the executive editor of the Weekly Standard, one of Fox's "Beltway Boys," and as a weekly participant on The McLaughlin Group on PBS. Just as no one thought that Tiny Tim could speak in A Christmas Carol, nobody believed that Fred Barnes was capable of articulating an idea of his own.

But then it happened!

At the end of an article in The Weekly Standard, Barnes notes briefly that Ron Paul might be leveraging his surprising run in the Republican primaries into a Libertarian campaign in the general election.

Come to think of it, there is a credible scenario for Ron Paul. That would mean running as the Libertarian candidate for president in the general election. His scenario would see him winning more votes than any Libertarian presidential nominee ever has. Just not enough to win the presidency.

Authenticators are investigating even as we speak, but I believe this constitutes an original thought. Barnes himself must have been so shocked by the novelty of this idea, or having any idea at all, that he developed a case of the vapors. That's because he didn't notice that Ron Paul winning 3% of the popular vote would doom any Republican presidential candidacy in 2008.

In other words, Barnes not only had an original idea, he had a significant idea.

It's a miracle.

Giuliani, Thoreau, and Wisdom

Ranting with Thoreau. Subbing for the admirable Glenn Greenwald, blogger Chris Floyd takes off on a long rant about the need to sharpen resistance to the Bush administration. Floyd warms my academic's heart by introducing his lengthy post with a quote from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience:"

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Unfortunately, Thoreau was wrong about just about everything and Chris Floyd is mistaken to take Thoreau as a role model for responding to the crimes of the Bush administration. Thoreau is certainly wrong concerning how to respond to the disgrace of being associated with the crimes of chattel slavery and the Mexican War. Thoreau endeavored to save himself from the disgrace of association with the Polk administration by committing symbolic crimes like refusing to pay his taxes--a crime that did nothing to stop slavery but did represent a severing of Thoreau's ties to the government.

That's much of what Floyd focuses on--urging the Democratic leadership to use impeachment and non-cooperation with the government as a vehicle to signal a refusal to be associated with the Bush administration's pre-emptive wars, refusal to abide by the rule of law, and crimes against humanity.

As I've noted elsewhere, Thoreau's answer should be taken up by every person in public life, beginning with the senators and representatives in Congress. There should be noncompliance, nonrecognition of this illegitimate authority, disassociation from taking part in its workings. No Bush appointees should be approved; indeed, they have already shown their unfitness for office by agreeing to work under the criminal regime in the first place. All legislation offered by the regime should be rejected outright; it is dishonorable to treat with a faction whose unprovoked, unnecessary "war of choice" in Iraq has now killed more Americans than were murdered on 9/11. The only "negotiation" acceptable with such bloodstained wretches is settling the terms of their exit from power.

For above all, impeachment should be moved to the top of the congressional agenda. It should be the overriding, all-consuming priority of the people's representatives. For this is the inescapable, stone-cold truth: nothing, absolutely nothing but impeachment, will stop the Bush-Cheney regime from carrying out its criminal agenda.

But we cannot escape the disgrace of the Bush administration any more than Thoreau could escape the disgrace of living in a slave society. When the invasion began, it had the consent of Congress and was supported by 70% of the population. Even those of us who opposed the invasion bear responsibility because of our inability to convince our fellow citizens that the invasion would be disastrous as well as wrong. Obviously, we war opponents don't bear the same level of responsibility as the Bush administration, the media, or the cowardly Democratic leadership, but we were part of the decision-making process as well. The shame of the awful death toll in Iraq, the crimes against humanity committed by the Bush administration, and the perversion of American government also rests on us.

And it's something that I've felt since the day of the invasion.

The Heir of Dick Cheney. At this point in time, the gestures of non-cooperation recommended by Chris Floyd and like-minded souls are wrong-headed are likely to convince voters that progressives are no more mature and responsible than the right-wing. Instead of eviscerating the Bush administration, such gestures are more likely to convince voters to vote for a Republican nominee like Rudy Giuliani. In other words, the Thoreau approach to the present crisis could result in at least four more years of what Floyd calls "the nation's death spiral into darkness, ruin and dishonor."

And Rudy Giuliani is the man for the job. He's just as bent on war with Iran and Syria as anybody in the Bush administration. Likewise, he's just as contemptuous of dissent, just as contemptuous of international law, just as contemptuous as Congress, and just as contemptuous of traditions of American government as Dick Cheney. If Dick Cheney is the dark presence standing at the shoulder of the president, Rudy Giuliani would be the dark presence sitting behind the president's desk. Of all the Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani would be the legitimate heir to the Bush administration because he would be the most like the most powerful person in the Bush administration--Dick Cheney.

What Little Honor We Can Have. The only positive thing that we as Americans can salvage from the Bush years is the first steps of an alternative path. We as progressives can get to that alternative if we demonstrate that we are wiser, more competent, and more determined than the conservatives holding office. Engaging is a series of high level, damn-the-consequences refusals of any cooperation with the Bush administration is not the way to convince anybody that we are so much better than our opponents. If anything, it would result in the opposite of what we want.

In Search of Islamic Fascism

This week the right-wing is trying to promote "Islamic-Fascism Awareness Week" on college campuses and in the United States more generally.

But they're not doing a very good job. I first read about "Islamic-Fascism Awareness Week" on the left-wing blog Talking Points Memo. And it wasn't until today (Thursday) that I read about it in a conservative source--Ann Coulter's column.

But Coulter doesn't identify what she means by Islamo-Fascism because she's too eager to refer to liberals as fascists.

Evidently, the fingers she uses to type "traitor" were worn out and she had to switch to fascist to avoid "repetition" injuries like carpal tunnel.

But really, who are the Islamo-Fascists? And who are their main friends and allies? Of course, the Big Cheeses of Islamo-Fascism are Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership. And bin Laden and the Taliban have certain fascist qualities about them--their reliance on leadership charism as the focus of group loyalty, focus on Islamic purity, focus on the modern West as "the decadent "other," and expansionist aim of establishing a global caliphate.

But the purveyors of the "Islamo-Fascist" concept want to incorporate Iran, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, and the Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories as elements in a tidal wave of "Islamo-Fascism" that threatens to engulf the world, force us all to become Muslims, and drape "our women" in burkas.

In fact, the prime thrust of "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week" is to convince people that American women are "that close" to adapting the burka as their primary fasion statement.

Let me count some of the ways in which this is nonsense.

It should be mentioned that neither the Iranians, Hezbollah, or Hamas are allied with bin Laden or likely to become involved with bin Laden in the future. Moreover, none of these parties either have global terrorist ambitions or have taken global terrorist initiatives. Finally, the Iranians, Hezbollah, and Hamas are all much more involved in democracy than our allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan.

In other words, there is no Islamo-Fascist Movement outside al-Qaeda in Pakistan, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the al-Qaeda cells operating in various countries. Likewise, al-Qaeda in Iraq and the various al-Qaeda cells in other countries owe at least 90% of their interest and success to the blundering stupidity of the Bush administration. Instead of bin Laden drawing them to al-Qaeda and global terrorism, the Bush administration pushes them in that direction. Bin Laden may be their role model, but President Bush is their best friend and most powerful source of recruitment.

What threat is posed by al-Qaeda and the various al-Qaeda cells?

Al-Qaeda outlets are capable of launching terrorist attacks, but they are real threats in only two places--Afghanistan and Pakistan. The situation is especially dangerous in Pakistan where people who are committed to global terrorism are spread throughout the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus. If al-Qaeda succeeded in overthrowing the Pakistani government and establishing a Taliban regime in Pakistan, that would be a genuine threat.

Otherwise, al-Qaeda isn't much of a threat. It seems that all the organization around bin Laden is capable of is maintaining correspondence with Iraq and producing an occasional video.

Not exactly impressive.

And that's why my wife, daughters, woman colleagues, and female students aren't buying any burkas despite all the effort going into "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week."

Morehead State University: Better Than No. 1

In a departure from RSI tradition, I'm posting a comment that is strictly about Morehead State University. This is my analysis of the productivity dimension of Morehead State's "Planning for Greatness" Business Plan.

Morehead State University: Better Than No. 1!

Introduction.
The primary goal of the “Planning for Greatness” Business Plan is to make Morehead State University (MSU) the top-ranked regional state university in the South. “The Business Plan was developed as a financial roadmap to guide Morehead State University in its vision to “become the best public regional university in the South . . .” (Business Plan, 4) Given it’s current position as the top-rated by U. S. News & World Report (Business Plan, 3) regional state university in the South, James Madison University (JMU) of Harrisonburg, Virginia has become a benchmark for MSU.

Specifically, the Business Plan makes Morehead State’s University’s achievement of JMU’s standards for graduating students a cornerstone of MSU’s future success. Currently, JMU generates 24.7 graduates for every 100 full-time enrolled students (FTE’s) where MSU only graduates 16.4 students for every 100 FTE (Business Plan, 8). Thus, JMU seems more “productive” than Morehead State in turning entering students into graduates. The Council on Post-Secondary Education in Kentucky has mandated that Morehead State University increase its annual number of graduates from the current 1,055 per year to 1,799 per year in 2020 (6) as part of its effort to dramatically increase the number of college graduates in Kentucky. To lift the number of graduates to the CPE-mandated target, the Business Plan projects that MSU will need to raise the percentage of students we graduate (or raise our Productivity Index or PI) to a level of 22.3 that is close to that of JMU and increase the number of FTE’s from 7,512 to 11,994.

The Question of University Productivity.
However, productivity for a university is not simply a matter of how many students graduate out of the total pool of full-time students, it is a matter of how many students graduate out of that pool in relation to the expenses the university (and state) pays for educating them. In other words, productivity is also a matter of efficiency.

In relation to the issue of efficiency, the statistics included in the Business Plan clearly indicate that Morehead State University employs its available resources more productively than JMU to help students graduate with undergraduate degrees.

There are two considerations that lead to this conclusion.

First, Morehead State University and James Madison University spend almost exactly the same amount of money per graduating student. Expenditures per graduating student at Morehead State are $78565 which is only 1.27% more than expenditures per graduating student at JMU and might be wholly accounted for by reporting error. JMU spends 32.8% more than Morehead State University per FTE on its students but only gets 33.6% more graduates per 100 FTE’s as a result of the expenditure.

Table 1.

MSU James Madison University University

PI
MSU,16.4--James Madison U, 24.7

Funds per FTE
MSU, $12,886--James Madison U $19,164

Funds per graduate
MSU, $78,565--James Madison U $77,575

Difference in funds per graduate
1.27%

*numbers for PI and Funds per FTE derived from Business Plan, 16. “Funds per graduate” derived by dividing Funds per FTE by PI.

Table 1 indicates that MSU and James Madison University are equally productive in graduating students in relation to the resources they expend. However, considerations concerning the backgrounds and qualifications of students make it necessary to conclude that Morehead State University is the overall more productive of the two universities. According to a study of educational needs cited by the business plan , 19 out of the 22 counties in Morehead State’s service region have “more critical educational needs” (Business Plan, 12) than the average American county because of their lack of educational attainment, poverty, unemployment, and other factors. In fact, 12 of the counties in Morehead State’s service region are listed among the 100 poorest counties by median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest-income_counties_in_the_United_States) and Kentucky as a whole ranks 46th among the states in median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States).

The Business Plan does not provide information on the educational needs of the region surrounding James Madison University. However, given that Virginia (10th in median household income) is a considerably more prosperous state than Kentucky, it is reasonable to assume that JMU’s immediate region does not have the same high levels of “critical educational needs” as Morehead State’s service region and that students entering JMU have higher scores on standardized tests, more advance placement classes, better overall high school educations, and are generally more prepared for college than students entering Morehead State University. It is noteworthy the SAT scores for students enrolling JMU are in the middle 80% (averaging 1067) (http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06profiles/jamesmad1.htm) while the average entering ACT score for Morehead State students is 21, or about the 60th percentile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Kentucky). Likewise, the Business Plan notes that Morehead State students have a “higher than average number of developmental needs.” (Business Plan, 27)

The relative qualifications of JMU and Morehead State University students are important for considering the “productivity” of a university. Because they are less prepared for college work upon entering MSU, Morehead State students have to make more academic progress to graduate from Morehead State than James Madison students have to make in order to graduate from James Madison University. From the perspective of comparative university analysis, Morehead State University accomplishes considerably more with the $78,565 that it spends for each graduating student than James Madison accomplishes with its $77,575. Because Morehead State brings significantly less qualified students forward to graduation for almost exactly the same cost as James Madison University, Morehead State has to be considered as the more productive university in terms of the outcomes achieved with its resources.

James Madison may be the no. 1 regional state university in the South according to U. S. News & World Report, but Morehead State is a more productive university. In that light, proposals for making Morehead State University more efficient or more productive should not be seen in terms of following James Madison as a role mode. Instead, such proposals should be seen in terms of making Morehead State even more superior to James Madison in terms of “efficiency” and “productivity” than it is now. If anything, James Madison University should be looking to MSU as a model in certain regards.

Conclusion.
None of the considerations on “university productivity” offered here are meant to imply that Morehead State University should not seek to grow to a headcount of 12,000 students, graduate a higher percentage of the students we enroll, or employ our resources even more effectively than we do now. However, it is important to recognize that we are dealing with these issues from a position of considerable strength. Given our limited resources, the poverty of Eastern Kentucky, and the relative under-preparation of our entering students, Morehead State University is highly effective at deploying its resources in ways that make it possible for our students to make progress and graduate. This means that Morehead State academic programs, the General Education curriculum, various student support offices, the financial aid office, admissions, and other offices combine to do very well at helping students make progress in their academic programs and graduate. Indeed, we make more productive use of our resources than the No. 1 university of our type—James Madison University of Virginia.

However, I believe that the above comparison with JMU does imply that Morehead State should be careful in its decisions concerning which aspects of its operations need to be changed “at the margins” and which should be thoroughly overhauled or eliminated. Personally, I believe that the general education program at MSU is a successful program that could benefit from tinkering at the margins but might become less effective if it is completely taken apart and re-organized in an experimental fashion. Whether that is the case or not, the University needs to take some care that it doesn’t make its operations less effective rather than more.

The other important point that arises from the comparison with James Madison University is the importance of increasing Morehead State University’s financial resources. There may ultimately turn out to be intervening variables, but it is very striking James Madison spends 1/3 more than Morehead State per student and graduates about a 1/3 higher percentage of its FTE’s. This indicates that we can dramatically revise our programs, but that Morehead State University not going to be able to achieve our goal of graduating about 22.3% of our FTE’s unless we increase our funding by almost 50% above what we have now. We spend $12,886 per FTE at the present point. We’ll have to increase our spending to a James Madison level of more than $19,000 per student if we want James Madison results.

Todd Mayo, More on Jesus and Founding Fathers

There are serious plagiarism questions about the post below by Todd Mayo. Todd and I have not been able to resolve the issue. As a result, I've decidee to leave the post up along with the criticism of an anonymous commenter and my response.


"Todd Mayo wrote a particularly apt comment on my Jesus and the Founding Fathers post. I'm repringing almost all of it below.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"-Unkown.

This quote perfectly describes Governor Huckabee. I do not know whether he is unaware that his statement is incorrect of not. What I do know is that the men who lead the United States in its revolution against England, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and put together the Constitution were not Christians by any stretch of the imagination. Merely believing in God does not make a person a Christian. I do consider myself a Christian but one of the tenets of my faith is that all people should have the right to "worship how, where, or what they may."

The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.

Some examples:

Benjamin Franklin: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes." (Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming).

George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127).

John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)

Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.

Finally here is what Roger Williams,Founder of Rhode Island and a devout Baptist wrote:"The Church and State need not be, Williams insisted, inextricably linked: 'A Pagan or Antichristian Pilot may be as skillful to carry the Ship to its desired Port, as any Christian Mariner or Pilot in the World, and may perform that work with as much safety and speed.' 'God requireth not an Uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced in any Civill State,' he declared. Rather, the tares in the field of Christian grain must be left alone; let man hold whatever religious opinions he chooses provided he does not 'actually disturb civil peace."

So there we have it. Over and over again. These people were not hostile to Christianity at all. It is clear that they were hostile to no faith. It is equally clear however that in affairs of state, religion was not to be a consideration and the state was, under no circumstances to interfere with religious observance assuming that observence did not harm others or involve human or animal sacrifices."

What follows is the discussion concerning Todd's post by Anonymous and myself.

Anonymous said...
Actually, I think that it is the height of hubris to copy something from another website, paste it into a blog's comment board, and then, when the blogger thinks it is good, you comment on something you claim to have written. A majority of that post was copied from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm almost word for word. Changing a word here and there does not make it your own. And posting it on a professor's blog makes that hubris even worse.
5:56 PM

7:52 AM
Ric Caric said...
I thought this comment from "Anonymous" belonged here.

"ok, since the great professor needs some help on spotting the plagiarism a few posts down from a Todd Mayo, I'll help.

Todd's comment says:"The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.

"http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm says:"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments."

Todd says:"George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127)."

Site says:"George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence...On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. From: George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX) "

Todd says: John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)"

Site says: John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." From: The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.

Todd says:Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.

Site says:The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration.

Some amazing coincidences there to ignore. Funny how todd has been able to channel this other writer so throughly. Granted there are some word changes, but I would think that a professor wouldn't think that that made it his own work. And then the gloating that he has to be all pious and talk about how stupid it is for someone to do that, WHEN IT'S OBVIOUS HE'S THE ONE WHO DID IT!If you let this slide, then all that stuff you posted about your university and JMU, you can forget it.

8:26 PM
Ric Caric said...
I'm writing to acknowledge the validity of Anonymous' claim that important parts of Todd's post are taken "almost word for word" from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm. What I would like to see happen is for Todd to respond to Anonymous' claim and indicate himself how he developed his formulations. I think it's a very healing thing to be able to deal with these kinds of difficulties when they arise. Until then, I've decided to leave the post up along with the comments from Anonymous and my responses. Until I can see an opening for a more satisfactory resolution, I believe that it's best to just let the whole exchange stand where it is.

Yes, I Have Seen Rain

Tonight, I'm reminded of the lyric from the James Taylor song: "Lord, I've seen fire and I've seen rain." That's because there's a hard, cleansing rain falling in our part of Kentucky. The rain is a thing of beauty in itself. It even smells right if such a phrase can be allowed. But it also improves the appearance of the environment. In a place where much of the beauty of nature lies in the over-abundance of plant life, a hard-cleansing fall rain makes the woodlands and streets even more beautiful by paring down much of the over-growth. When the rain stops, many of the trees will stand out even more because they'll be cluttered with fewer leaves.

Did the Founding Fathers Follow Jesus?

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo gets grumpy with Mike Huckabee because of Huckabee's claim that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen.

I've sort of gotten tired of explaining that, no, the Founding Fathers actually weren't all born-agains and bible thumpers. Not hardly. (Probably better to say that the great majority ranged from believers in an entirely impersonal God -- Deists -- to believing Christians who nonetheless viewed popular religious enthusiasm with a polite and paternal disdain.) But presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, himself a Baptist minister, actually told a crowd yesterday that "most" of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were "clergymen."

Actually, it turns out that only one signer of the Declaration was a minister.

But Marshall doesn't go nearly far enough. In fact, it's extremely difficult to imagine Jesus supporting the American Revolution. The British were certainly the leading tyrants of the age, but the Palestine of Jesus' time was occupied by much worse tyrants in the form of the Romans. Did Jesus criticize Roman rule, countenance revolt, or support those who did revolt. Did he value either personal liberty or the liberty of the Jewish people?

The answer is a resounding "no" on all of these counts.

The Revolutionary period in American history began with resistance to the new taxes associated with the Stamp Act--"No Taxation without Representation." To the contrary, Jesus specifically endorsed paying what would have been far more onerous taxes to Rome. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:13-17).

Of course, the British committed other kinds of tyrannical acts besides imposing taxes. They tried to set up elites around royal governors, quartered troops in colonial cities, and killed colonial militiamen at the battles of Lexington and Concord.

However, Jesus counseled against resisting these kinds of tyrannies on several levels. If the colonists considered the British to be enemies as Thomas Paine argued they should in Common Sense, Jesus was emphatic in proclaiming that people should "love their enemies."

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse yo, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)

Emphatic indeed.

Perhaps the British weren't just our enemies. Perhaps they were evil. However, Jesus says to "resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39)

Of course, we could argue that the values of freedom for which the American revolutionaries were fighting were "Christian values."

But not if Christianity has anything to do with Jesus.

What Jesus valued and lived in his own life (at least according to the New Testament) was suffering and especially suffering that led to martyrdom for his sake. That's why he opened the Sermon on the Mount with blessings for "the poor in spirit," "they that mourn," "the meek," and "they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." (Matthew 5:3-6)

From the point of view of Jesus, it's the poor, weak, suffering, and lost who will inherit both the earth and the kingdom of heaven. It's those people who were best suited to follow his own path toward martyrdom.

If Jesus had used the rhetoric of freedom (and there's no record that he did), he would not have meant freedom in terms of protecting liberties, rights, and property or avoiding various kinds of subordination. In other words, Jesus would not have meant the freedom that the colonists fought for during the American Revolution.

Instead, he would have meant the freedom of having nothing left to lose--A "Me and Bobby McGee" kind of freedom.

Let me be clear. I don't mean to criticize the American Revolution here. But Jesus would have been the last person to endorse revolt and revolution of any kind, including the American Revolution.

And Mike Huckabee is kidding himself if he thinks the American Revolution can be associated with either the Christian god or Christianity as a religion.

Another Chance for the Democrats

I'm getting tired of beating up on the Democratic leadership in relation to Iraq. So, this time, I'll pose the issue in terms of "opportunity." The Bush administration is requesting more money for the wars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year.

The White House has reportedly tacked on an additional $46 billion to its upcoming funding request for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total to a breathtaking $196.4 billion for a single budgetary year — and assuming this passes as is, there could even be more supplemental spending bills down the road.

This is another opportunity for the Democratic leadership in Congress to push for a withdrawal from Iraq. Given that President Bush vetoed legislation that tied funding to a withdrawal deadline, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should up the ante a little more and cap funding in Iraq to those expenses necessary for winding up current operations and withdrawing troops.

And it should be a hard cap as well.

For the Democratic leadership at this point, it's a matter of choosing the way they're going to get pounded. If they pass withdrawal legislation, the Republicans will go after them with every tool in their smearing playbook. If the Democratic leadership doesn't pass withdrawal legislation, they'll be criticized by the progressive wing of the party and discourage Democratic voters more generally. They found that out after the last round of political combat over funding the Iraq War. Democratic voters were tremendously dissatisfied over the failure of the leadership to end the war and registered their disappointment in low approval ratings for Congress.

In the final irony, failure to pass troop withdrawal legislation won't help them with the right-wing either. All Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity would do is switch from the accusations of treason they were making last spring to a big round of gloating over the cowardice and ineffectiveness of the Democratic leadership.

Given that they're going to be hammered no matter what they do, the Democratic leadership should just bite the bullet and refuse to fund anything about the Iraq War except the withdrawal of American forces from their current combat roles.

Bush Crime Watch--No. 1

There was so much crime news from the Bush administration and it seems like it's going to go on for so long that I'm starting a new series of posts on the Bush crime scene.

1. It appears that the Blackwater security company stole a couple of airplanes from the Iraqi government and refused to give them back. But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki welched on a Super Bowl bet with Blackwater honcho Erik Prince.

2. Former federal prosecutor Bud Mackay claims that an Inspector General's report fromt he Department of Justice is going to recommend that Alberto Gonzales be prosecuted for perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will Bush give a pre-emptive pardon? And would that pardon constitute obstruction of justice as well?

3. According to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, American forces killed 15 civilians and wounded 52 other civilians during a raid on the Sadr City section of Baghdad this morning. There are other reports of American troops targeting any and all fleeing cars, a couple of toddler bodies in the city morgue, and a 14 year-old boy being shot while he was sleeping on the family roof. The spokesperson for the military claimed that they weren't aware of any civilians being harmed.

But shooting up a neighborhood isn't just dumb. It's a crime.

Doing Nothing About Pakistan

The MSNBC link to the Newsweek story on Pakistan is titled "The World's Most Dangerous Nation." But it's been that way since 2001. Bin Laden is in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda has significant support in the Pakistani intelligence apparatus and tribal regions. Likewise, the Pakistani government of Musharraf/Benazir Bhutto is hanging on by a couple of threads, and Pakistan has real and verifiable nuclear weapons.

All of that makes Pakistan extremely dangerous.

At this point, most liberal bloggers would say that the Bush administration needs to "do something" about Pakistan.

But I think it's better that the Bush people aren't doing much beyond learning Musharraf's name. Given the Bush administration's competence issues, "doing nothing" is probably the best way to "do no harm."

Gay Dumbledore Enhances Potter Series

Having grown up in an abusive family, I've always been moved by the "paternal" dimension of the Harry Potter series. Protagonist Harry Potter grew up in the abusive household of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon Dursley, but Rowling created a web of paternity around Harry to help him grow up as he gradually came to confront the threat of Voldemort. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was the primary paternal figure but there was also his godfather Sirius Black, teacher Remus Lupin, Arthur Weasley, the images of biological father James Potter's family in the Mirror of Erised, and the patronus figure that came to his aid against dementors. Even the phoenix Fawkes had some key paternal moments although the healing, encouraging baum of phoenix song and phoenix tears could also be seen as an extension of Dumbledore's care.

The collective fathering of Harry Potter came into focus in the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as Dumbledore, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin all (along with Harry's mother) reached from beyond the grave to provide Harry with final instruction, guidance, and encouragement.

Once again, Dumbledore was the key figure, the wisest man despite (or perhaps because of) his limitations and mistakes, the person who helped Harry the most, the one with whom Harry had to reconcile.

But the other father figures were just as necessary even if they were more limited.

It was all that assistance and love that allowed Harry to confront Voldemort and confront him alone when the time came.

Yesterday, J. K. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. I think the revelation of Dumbledore's gayness enhances the whole series. Being gay adds another dimension to the humanity of the Dumbledore character and helps explain his enthusiasm for Gellert Grindelwald and his lack of heterosexual involvement. What adds to the series is that a gay man could take up the burden of providing fatherly guidance for a young boy facing enormous difficulties and be constantly animated by "the greater good" of the boy's welfare.

Much as African-Americans are still associated with stereotypes from slavery, gay people (and especially gay men) are still stereotyped as selfish, immature, inherently pedophilic, and obsessed with sex to the exclusion of everything else. Rowling's Dumbledore certainly had weaknesses, but Rowling portrays Dumbledore's youthful selfishness, ambition, and vanity and his mature errors of judgment as broadly human and shows Dumbledore doing his difficult duty to Harry and the whole wizarding world by taking Harry under his wing.

The fact that he was gay adds a further dimension of humanity to Dumbledore's heroism.