Both PoliBlog and Xrlq take note of this bizarre AP story that alleges that Bush mispronounced the name of the state of Nevada:

Bush, in Las Vegas on Tuesday, repeatedly said Ne-vah-da. To properly pronounce Nevada, the middle syllable should rhyme with gamble.

There’s only one minor problem with this theory: Merriam-Webster says both pronunciations are acceptable.

I know absolutely no-one who pronounces “Nevada” the way these native Nevadans claim it should be pronounced; it’s like claiming I should pronounce “Mexico” as “Mehico” because that’s how Mexicans say it. This is sheer idiocy masquerading as a critique.

John Cole isn’t impressed either; neither are Nevada residents D.C. Thornton and Sin City Cynic. Xrlq also notes, shall we say, some minor grammatical difficulties with the account as presented in the Las Vegas Sun.

Matt Stinson has a roundup of reactions to HR 1, the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, which has a lot of the right’s underwear in rather uncomfortable positions. But then there’s John Cole’s reaction:

The only problem is that nothing in my experience, and in particular the rhetoric of the Democrats during the Drug Benefit debate, even gives me the slightest impression Democrats would be any better.

Mauvais ou plus mauvais. Doesn’t it always boil down to that?

PressThink’s Jay Rosen has a lengthy and insightful take on Daniel Okrent’s appointment as the New York Times ombudsman public editor. Rosen thinks that Okrent could use blogs and other outside commentary to help police the Times; the question is whether the newspaper’s apparent antipathy toward blogs will make it possible for Okrent to pursue that model of criticism.

Both Tavares Karol and Michael Van Winkle have posts at The Chicago Report trying to figure out the current strategy of the Republicans. Karol implies—although he doesn’t explicitly argue—that Republicans have borrowed Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” strategy and taken it to a new level. On the other hand, what Karol sees as good strategy, Van Winkle sees as being to the long-term detriment of the party:

Clinton left office without giving the Democrats any direction. The party under Clinton existed to serve his presidency, to defend his antics and get him reelected. All the while, Clinton’s policies were creating fissures in the party, fissures he had no intention of smoothing over with his leadership. When a party is split between two possible futures it’s up to the leader to pick one and raise the sails. Otherwise, the party is left aimlessly afloat and burdened with resolving the structural cracks itself. This is a very difficult process and we’re seeing it played out in the Democratic Primaries. The Democrats aren’t sure what their party is and where it’s going.

Bush is doing the same number on the Republicans. Sure, he is working toward reelection and will probably be successful, but what about that other role, Republican Party leader? Well, he doesn’t seem to take that role very seriously. He isn’t leading the GOP toward any coherent destiny beyond his own presidency. This is the primary difference between Bush and Reagan. They both cut taxes, but the latter did it with a vision for the future. The former has done it, primarily for political expediency (not that I am complaining). The Republicans have to ask themselves, “what happens after Bush is gone?” “Do we like the direction the party is moving?”

If the current course (or nonexistent course) is maintained, when Bush leaves office (whether 2004 or 2008) the GOP will undoubtedly witness the same kind of infighting that the Democrats are currently working through. The Dems’ problems may be exacerbated by their being the party out of power, but if the GOP is left adrift then they (the Democrats) won’t be out of power for long.

Perhaps it is the lot of parties in this media-centric age to regress to being personalistic in nature; many political scientists (myself included) have assumed that the personalistic nature of parties in developing countries (think of Mahathir in Malaysia, or Lee in Singapore) is a phase that will be outgrown as parties become more institutionalized. But maybe that’s a more widespread—and reemerging—phenomenon, particularly within ruling parties; can we think of Labour quite the same way without Tony Blair, the RPR without Jacques Chirac, the SPD without Gerhard Schröder, the Canadian Liberals without Jean Chrétien, Forza Italia without Silvio Berlusconi, or the Republicans without George W. Bush?

With the institutional power of American parties in rapid decline relative to both candidates and interest groups (witness George Soros’ large donation to MoveOn.org, rather than the Democrats), thanks to the incumbency advantage, widespread adoption of open primaries, and McCain-Feingold, it seems likely that the United States will see more of these fights for the heart and soul of the party, as candidates and interest groups try to gain control of the remaining institutional advantages of the major parties—their automatic access to the ballot and their “brand recognition.” Why build a third party from scratch when you can just hijack the Republicans or Democrats?

This is today’s entry in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

MSNBC has canned Buchanan and Press, according to the Associated Press (via the Miami Herald). Unfortunately, though, it’s just the silly Crossfire knockoff—they’ll still be on the GE/Microsoft payroll:

Both men will continue to be contributors to MSNBC, said Erik Sorenson, the network’s president.

Just when you thought it was safe to watch MSNBC again…

LSU über-fan TigerEducated notes an LSU Reveille column by Bryan Wideman that focuses on Friday night’s near-brawl between drunk LSU and Ole Miss supporters near the Oxford Square. You can also read the Oxford Eagle’s account of the incident.

While I don’t think Wideman’s experience was typical of that of most visiting fans, I think his account of being roughed up by an Oxford police officer ought to be properly investigated; that’s simply unacceptable conduct.

Robert Prather of Insults Unpunished links to a WaPo piece on a list, compiled by conservative stuents, of ten UT-Austin professors who allegedly use their classrooms as a forum for proselytization instead of teaching.

I do think it’s sometimes a professor’s job to challenge the views held by their students, to ensure that they are actually considered viewpoints; however, there’s a difference between that and becoming an advocate. Particularly in large lectures, where there is often little time for discussion, and where there may be an incentive for students to try to curry favor with the professor by claiming to share the professor’s views, I think it’s best to avoid advocacy.

My cardinal rule in the classroom is to keep my students guessing; the highest compliment I’ve received was from a student who indicated that she and some of her friends couldn’t figure out what my politics were—which, I think, means I was doing my job just fine.

First, Washington Redskins backup QB Tim Hasselbeck (not to be confused with Matt Hasselbeck, his brother), with three NFL passes to his credit, puts on a passing clinic against the Miami Dolphins despite losing the game, then his new wife Elisabeth, fresh off Survivor, lands a gig on The View replacing Lisa Ling.

As Brock notes below, the gay marriage debate has spawned some odd threads, including a discussion of the constitutionality of non-procreative marriage by Jacob Levy. While, in general, I’m not particularly interested in this debate*, I think there are a couple of plausible interpretations of the constitutionality of marriage:

• A textualist argument would say the Constitution has nothing to say on the issue, either way; marriage is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Pure strict constructionalism would argue that this gives Congress no right to legislate on marriage, as that is not an enumerated power of Congress. An expansive reading of the “necessary and proper” clause would argue that Congress can regulate marriage, at least between residents of different states (under the interstate commerce clause), or in all circumstances, as marriage may be part of the “general welfare.” Neither interpretation seems to suggest that marriage would be a constitutional right, though.
• An originalist argument would say that the Constitution is only construed to protect marriages that were permitted under English common law at the time of independence (under the meaning of “liberty” at the time). This would probably limit constitutionally protected marriage to marriages involving one man and one woman, within a single race, and instituted by a religious ceremony of some form. Clearly, an originalist argument would no longer be supported by precedent, as interracial marriage is constitutionally protected (see Loving v. Virginia) and so, presumably, are civil marriages.
• An argument based on the majority holding in Lawrence v. Texas would probably consider marriage as a constitutionally protected “liberty interest” absent a compelling state interest to the contrary. This would place the burden on the state to show there is an overwhelming interest that isn’t based on prejudice against gay marriage, something that I think would be very hard to show.

There’s also a second argument surrounding gay marriage: whether the “full faith and credit” clause requires states where certain marriages are not constitutionally protected to acknowledge those marriages if they were conducted under the laws of another state (say, Massachussetts). Absent a clear textual command to the contrary, I, like Matt Stinson, suspect you could find at least some state or federal courts that would say “yes,” although I don’t think the U.S. Supreme Court would eventually concur. However, some state supreme courts probably would.

What worries me is that, like abortion, this will become one of those interminable debates that paralyzes the judiciary—and by extension, politics at large—because the Supreme Court takes sides too soon in the wider political debate. The last thing this country needs is another “culture war” where the Supreme Court has essentially placed a highly controversial issue beyond ordinary politics. It’s the sort of thing that leads to both parties taking absurdly extreme positions and is ripe fodder for demagoguery by the likes of Roy Moore and the Buchananites.

Eugene Volokh notes that Howard Dean’s campaign blog is trumpeting an endorsement from Ted Rall from Rall’s latest Universal Press Syndicate column. For those unfamiliar with Rall, he’s the unthinking man’s Tom Tomorrow. I guess Howard’s still not done tacking left…

Having said that, I agree with Rall* that Dean is the Democrats’ best chance for beating Bush, because (a) he has the plurality support of the party’s base and (b) those plurality supporters won’t stand for anyone else in the field, no matter how much they try to tack to the left. The way I see it, the Dems can get 45% of the national popular vote with Dean, or 35–40% with anyone else, with the remainder either defecting to the Greens or just staying home.

Glenn Reynolds has the reaction from the right, including posts from Eye on the Left, Tim Blair, and Blogs for Bush.

Conrad and Pieter at PeakTalk both make their readers aware of the Indonesian practice of gijzeling, which is apparently often used by Indonesian officials to shake down foreigners. As Pieter points out, not only is gijzeling a Dutch term (which literally means “hostage taking”); it also has its roots in Dutch law. As Pieter writes:

Had this practice not been part of the legal infrastructure that the Dutch left behind in Indonesia, I have little doubt that somehow Indonesian authorities would at some point have discovered this technique of generating additional revenue. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that if ever the country comes under serious international criticism over this practice it will happily point to the old colonial master that introduced the practice in the first place.

It is not just Indonesia that has found this practice, of borrowing from past colonial laws, effective; the neighboring Malaysian government’s notorious Internal Security Act is a direct decendent of British anti-sedition laws enacted under colonial rule to combat communist insurgencies, as are Singapore’s similar internal security laws. In response to criticism, both governments have regularly pointed out that Britain had imposed equally draconian legislation in the past; they have also noted laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act that were enacted by Britain to combat the IRA and “loyalist” terrorist groups in Northern Ireland.

I don’t know if there’s an obvious lesson to be drawn from this pattern. To echo Pieter, authoritarian regimes generally don’t need any help figuring out ways cracking down on disfavored groups. But to the extent vague and open-ended laws are used in democracies to crack down on terrorist groups, authoritarian states can point to those laws to justify similar provisions—even if, in practice, they are targeted at their nonviolent political opponents rather than terrorists.

Hell Yeah, Damn Right
Hotty Toddy, Gosh A-Mighty,
Who The Hell Are We?
Hey! Flim-Flam, Bim Bam,
Ole Miss, By Damn.

See you later…

I may or may not have more to say on the game tomorrow. I’m currently dog tired and not particularly sober. In the meantime, you can read Robert Prather’s thoughts on the game, which I generally agree with, and my comments at his place, which I definitely agree with. And Conrad isn’t particularly thrilled with the outcome either.

Venomous Kate has a link to a Honolulu Advertiser piece in which she is interviewed about the continuing disappearance of her back yard at the hands of the Pacific Ocean and the rather callous attitude of the state authorities toward the situation.

At least down in these parts, we’re allowed to do something about the kudzu. Not that you can do much about kudzu over the long term, mind you, but still…

A little earlier than I’d meant, but I imagine I’ll be in a hurry in the morning tomorrow. On to the picks (as always, straight up):

• GEORGIA over Kentucky. The good news for Kentucky: win out and they go to a bowl. The bad news: if the Wildcats can’t beat Vanderbilt in Nashville in front of a half-dozen fans, they certainly can’t win inside the hedges in Athens.
• TENNESSEE over Vanderbilt. Then again, the Commodores are on a one-game conference winning streak…
• ARKANSAS over Mississippi State. Time is running out on the Jackie Sherill farewell tour, and I don’t think the parting gifts will be nice from Fayetteville, particularly with Arkansas trying to sneak into the Cotton Bowl with a late surge.
• Clemson over SOUTH CAROLINA. If Tommy Bowden’s team can stay focused, they should beat their in-state rival. But SC is a dangerous football team nonetheless; ask Florida, who by all rights should have lost to the Gamecocks last week.
• Alabama over AUBURN. Yes, “on paper” Auburn outclasses Alabama in almost every phase of the game. But with Alabama having nothing to play for except punching Auburn’s ticket to the EV1.com Houston Bowl, all the pressure is on Tommy Tuberville, Jason Campbell, and Carnell Williams, who were supposed to be wrapping up the regular season on their way to the Sugar Bowl at this point. Look for Tubby’s squad to find another way to lose.

And, last but not least:

• OLE MISS over Louisiana State. Forget about Eli Manning; the real story is that the 21 other starters around him have battled through adversity, injury, and early-season embarassments. Nobody gave the Rebels a chance to be where they are today at the beginning of the season. Eight weeks ago, most fans thought the best thing that might happen in this season was another trip to Shreveport. At that time, sophomore receiver Taye Biddle, who dropped sure TDs against Memphis and Texas Tech, was less popular in Oxford than Osama Bin Laden. Now I don’t know if the Rebels are a team of destiny. But I do know that this game is for all the marbles. And every time since September 27 when it’s been put-up-or-shut-up time, someone has stepped up and made the key play, whether it’s Eli making a key QB sneak to run out the clock on South Carolina, Lorenzo Townsend—the fullback—catching a 49 yard pass on 3rd and long against Auburn deep in the 4th quarter, or Eric Oliver picking off Chris Leak to stop a late drive by Florida. The Rebels haven’t always won pretty. They haven’t kept the proverbial boot on the neck at times. They’ve been burned on freak plays. But still, somehow, they keep finding a way to win. And I think they’ll do it again Saturday. Not because Ole Miss outmatches LSU in any phase of the game—frankly, they don’t—but because the Rebels are on a mission that they’re not quite done with yet. And they’ll have the largest crowd ever to witness a sporting event in the state of Mississippi on hand to help carry them over the goal line.

What, you were expecting X’s and O’s?

Also of interest: a New York Times profile of Manning.

James Joyner of OTB notes that Matt Drudge is reporting that Howard Dean may have exaggerated a medical condition to avoid serving in Vietnam. Like James, I don’t expect it to have much impact on the election; however, if Dean wins the nomination, it will make it more difficult for relatively scrupulous Democrats to trot out the “Bush went AWOL” rumors.

In general, though, I don’t think people care all that much any more; witness the failure of both John F. “I Served in Vietnam” Kerry and Wes Clark to gain much traction with their military histories. Past military service (or the lack thereof) hasn’t really been a meaningful issue in a presidential contest since 1960.*

John Cole thinks the news is a hit piece orchestrated by Kerry and/or Clark; apparently, Drudge’s scoop is based on this New York Times piece by Rick Lyman and Christopher Drew.

Other reactions: Kevin at Wizbang! thinks it was planted by Kerry, while Steve at Tiny Little Lies thinks Dean is screwed regardless of who planted it (or if, in the immortal words of Andy Sipowicz, Dean’s camp launched “preemptive stink”). And Matt Stinson agrees with James and I that the attack probably won't work, while Poliblogger Steven Taylor makes the point that Dean is well-positioned even if the charge does stick with some voters:

[S]ince he is running as essentially the anti-war candidate, in some ways this simply adds to that position in its own kind of way. In other words, the hard-core Democrats who are currently gung-ho for Dean are hardly going to fault him for not wanting to go to Viet Nam, now are they?

Daniel Drezner, fresh off his 300-comment-inducing disagreement with blogosphere folk hero James Lileks, notes both progress and regress on the trade front by the administration, with regress apparently beating out progress quite handily.

Megan McArdle writes on Howard Dean and his penchant for regulation in her latest piece at TechCentralStation. All I want to know is: when can I get on the VRWC gravy train?

Pejmanesque has more, including links to negative reactions to Dean’s remarks by Tyler Cowen and Stuart Buck.

One Fine Jay administers a brutal fisking to John C. Dvorak, professional crumudgeon/columnist, for his PC Magazine article predicting the demise of blogging.

Let me focus on Dvorak’s stats backing this up:

Let’s start with abandoned blogs. In a white paper released by Perseus Development Corp., the company reveals details of the blogging phenomenon that indicate its foothold in popular culture may already be slipping (www.perseus.com/blogsurvey). According to the survey of bloggers, over half of them are not updating any more. And more than 25 percent of all new blogs are what the researchers call “one-day wonders.” Meanwhile, the abandonment rate appears to be eating into well-established blogs: Over 132,000 blogs are abandoned after a year of constant updating.

Perseus thinks it had a statistical handle on over 4 million blogs, in a universe of perhaps 5 million. Luckily for the blogging community, there is still evidence that the growth rate is faster than the abandonment rate. But growth eventually stops.

The most obvious reason for abandonment is simple boredom. Writing is tiresome. Why anyone would do it voluntarily on a blog mystifies a lot of professional writers. This is compounded by a lack of feedback, positive or otherwise. Perseus thinks that most blogs have an audience of about 12 readers. Leaflets posted on the corkboard at Albertsons attract a larger readership than many blogs. Some people must feel the futility.

Now, there are plenty of reasons why people may be abandoning blogs. Some people may, in fact, be abandoning blogging altogether. Some have decided to take their thoughts private, so they move. Some may join group blogs. Many migrate from Blog*Spot to hosting providers. Many move from one Blog*Spot address to another—heck, Blogger even advocates the practice. Some bloggers have backup blogs hosted elsewhere. Some people—Matt Stinson, Dan Drezner—have done more than one of these. All of these “failure modes” are lumped together, because it’s simply too hard to track what’s going on.

Pronouncing blogging a failure on the basis of these weak statistics would be like noting that DirecTV loses 570,000 customers a year, and arguing this means satellite television is doomed. “Churn”—what business calls the continual cycle of losing customers—is a natural aspect of any phenomenon in which collective preferences are aggregated. Companies lose customers, but they also gain new ones. Citizens move in and out of the voting population. And some people decide blogging isn’t for them—but a lot of others do. If there are really 5 million blogs—that is, one blog for every thousand human beings alive today, and perhaps one for every hundred with Internet access—that’s a truly staggering statistic. But I guess Dvorak’s just the latest in the long line of media dinosaurs that doesn’t “get” that.

Perseus' blog has a response to my post (and, by extension, the Dvorak piece). They note that only 1.6% of abandoned blogs include any forwarding information, and go on to write:

Pronouncing blogging a failure on the basis of these weak statistics…

Better to say its a weak argument to declare blogging a failure in a study that showed the number of hosted blogs growing from 135,000 at the end of 2000 to over five million at the end of 2003.

Via Matthew Stinson.

Larry Sabato has his hokey “crystal ball” schtick, while Steven Taylor again consults his toaster. For what it’s worth, my microwave says Dean has the lead, but the floodlights on my house still think Gephardt and Clark have a chance.

In all seriousness, Steven gets the edge by far, since (a) he’s never injured anyone that got between him and a reporter and (b) he has adopted a metaphor that doesn’t reflect negatively on the discipline.

I’ve already said my piece on this blogospheric navel-gazing exercise in the comments at Dan’s place (in short, I think all the participants are talking past each other); however, Matt Stinson, Robert Garcia Tagorda, James Joyner, and Anticipatory Retaliation have the cream of the reactions—from my POV, at least.

Robert Prather also responds, noting that Salam Pax in particular owes his livelihood to the U.S. forces who liberated Iraq.

Conrad of The Gweilo Diaries notes the latest events in the bizarre Hong Kong Crocodile saga. In Florida, they send out a dude in a truck to wrangle the reptile in question (usually an alligator, mind you), and the problem is solved, at least until another one wanders into the neighborhood. They most certainly don’t dick around for two weeks in the process. Simply amazing.

How big is Ole Miss-LSU?

• Ole Miss SID Langston Rogers says it’s the biggest game since 1952, when Maryland came into Oxford ranked #3.
• At least a third of the GameDay crew wanted to be here. I blame Herbstreit, personally. (I mean, honestly, who in hell would want to freeze their butts off in Ann Arbor when they could be in Oxford? That place is only livable between Memorial Day and Labor Day…)
• LSU gets no R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Yet somehow they’re 6½ point favorites?
• The Matt Mauck NFL speculation has begun.
• There’s a preview at CollegeFootballNews.com too. And lots of stuff at the Clarion-Ledger, while the Shreveport Times has things covered from the LSU perspective.
• If it’s Thursday, it’s time for Steven Godfrey’s Tight End column in the Daily Mississippian.

But at least TigerEducated has his yellow and purple blinders on. Phew; I thought hell had frozen over…

In more game news: Ole Miss had the most pathetic pep rally I’ve ever seen tonight in the square. It lasted all of ten minutes. I’ve been to high school pep rallies that lasted longer. Still, you could have heard the Hotty Toddy that went up from Batesville. Oh, if you’re thinking of coming to Oxford on Saturday—we’re all full up. Sorry. (This is just my lame attempt to avoid having to get out of bed at o-dark-thirty to be able to park closer than my house.)

Elsewhere in college football, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles snuffed out TCU’s BCS hopes. I still think it’d be cool to have the in-state series with all three I-A programs; who knows, it might be a fun new-to-me rivalry. Maybe it’d even raise enough money to get Mississippi State a decent-looking stadium, instead of that butt-ugly monstrosity that makes the entire MSU campus look like a pit.

Mike van Winkle of The Chicago Report is hosting a discussion on the rationality of voting. As I note in the comments, I don’t think Downs’ conception of rational voting is quite inclusive enough to explain why most people vote in the United States and other democracies where voting isn’t compulsory.

Steven Taylor notes the latest setbacks for Bilbo wannabe Roy Moore, late of the Alabama Supreme Court. First the Alabama convention of the Southern Baptist Church distanced itself from Moore, then the perennially irrelevant Constitution Party invited Moore to be its 2004 presidential nominee. Now all that’s left is for Moore to get an MSNBC talk show with Phil Donahue to complete his deserved slide into pathetic obscurity.

James Joyner discovered that he’s an “influential” according to the authors of a new book entitled—you guessed it—The Influentials. Never mind that any first-year grad student in sociology or political science already knew this, because Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld wrote a book on it called Personal Influence, oh, way back in 1955 (yes, kids, 48 years ago). Now just wait until someone cribs Zaller for the biz-exec audience…