Here’s Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin. The veep candidate is so far in over her head, it’s terrifying. And there is no way to see this as anything other than a reckless and irresponsible pick by John McCain.
I’m not a Katie Couric fan, but she does a good job here—better than Charlie Gibson did.
McCain canceled an appearance on David Letterman to suspend his campaign; Letterman clearly didn’t think much of the choice.
John McCain is “suspending” his campaign to return to Washington and get involved in the bailout negotiations.
Is this a bold move? Or a desperate one? Does it look statesmanlike—or panicky?
“There may be financial institutions out there that are in more trouble than we thought they were.”
—Aaron Gurwitz, co-head of portfolio strategy, Lehman Brothers, 10.16.07 (quoted in the LA Times.)
I think I’m falling for Campbell Brown….
The campaign of populist, maverick reformer John McCain, the man who’s going to clean up Washington, is run by a guy who was on the take from Freddie Mac to the tune of $15 grand a month—until last month.
A disclosure, by the way, which contradicts McCain’s recent assertion that campaign manager Rick Davis had had nothing to do with the firm for several years.
Not until Freddie Mac was taken over by the government did it stop paying Davis, Manafort, the firm Davis owns.
No one at Davis Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.
…From 2000 to the end of 2005, Mr. Davis received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that proved to be their downfall.
There’s just no way around this conclusion: John McCain’s claim to be an outsider and a reformer must be seen as wholly fraudulent.
The Globe’s Alex Beam has written a lovely tribute to Morning Prayers at Harvard—but digresses to take a potshot at Drew Faust.
This is the most beautiful thing in Boston: Morning Prayers, the 15-minute, daily worship service in the Appleton Chapel at Harvard’s Memorial Church.
The most beautiful thing? Certainly one of them. In the few times that I’ve been to Morning Prayers, I’ve found it an interlude of solace and thought and community amidst a frenzied stream of bustle and competition.
Beam mentions some of the homilies that have been delivered there, and then adds a discordant note:
Last Tuesday, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust delivered an insipid message about global warming and “the preservation of the world,” dilating on the children’s song, “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”
Her fans explained to me that she was probably saving more meaningful remarks for larger and more important audiences. Perhaps.
That “perhaps” is classic Beam; what it really means is, “I doubt it.”
Two things.
First, is Beam right that the talk was insipid? Mmmm….yes. E.g.:
Monty Python’s mockery actually reinforces, rather than rejects, my fundamental point: urchins, squid, hornets, sharks matter, too. They play an essential part in what we might call the wonders of biodiversity.
“What we might call the wonders of biodiversity.” Yikes. Did Faust actually write this herself? Let us hope not.
Second is Beam’s larger point, or rather, implication: That Faust doesn’t, in the end, have “anything more meaningful” to say.
I don’t know the answer, but I think that, at this point in our getting to know Drew Gilpin Faust, it’s a fair question.
Sarah Palin bones up on foreign policy while visiting New York….
Alternate caption: Is that a big stick you’re carrying, Dr. Kissinger, or are you just happy to meet me?
Sorry for that, but how can one take this freak show seriously?
(Photo: Stan Honda/ AFP-Getty Images))
John McCain, it turns out, owns 13 cars. Three of them, it turns out, are foreign—a Honda, a VW, and a Prius—for which McCain is taking a lot of grief, at least some of which he deserves, since he did say, “I’ve bought American literally all my life and I’m proud.”
Whatever that means.
The McCains also own three 2000 NEV Gem electric vehicles, which are bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities.
Hah. I’d pay good money to see a picture of McCain driving that. It’d be Dukakis in the tank all over again.
Still, I wouldn’t fault McCain excessively for owning three foreign cars. First, it’d be hypocritical. I’ve never owned an American-made car in my life. (Two VWs, a used SAAB—I swear, the dealer told me the preivous owner was a priest “who only drove it on Sundays”—and a Honda.)
Second, it’s hard to know exactly where a car is made these days, even when its parent manufacturer is located overseas.
What I do wonder about is the fact that John McCain owns 13 cars.
How can we trust anyone talking about energy conservation and energy as a national security issue when he owns 13 cars?
Barack Obama, by the way, has one car—a Ford hybrid.
Californication returns to television this Sunday night. Thank God.
The New York Sun, like me, is delighted by the start of the second season of the best show on television….
Californication, which begins its second season Sunday at 10 p.m., is both a paean to debauchery and occasionally a critique of it. We’re meant to enjoy Hank’s rebellious instincts — not to mention those of his agent, Charlie (Evan Handler), and Charlie’s wife, Marcy (Pamela Adlon) — and bad-boy antics, and we do. We don’t want these people to behave well. We want them to act like they’re on an expensive cable channel having too much sex, taking too many drugs, and getting into too many mishaps at an hour when children are supposed to be in bed. As far as that goes, they deliver. The show knows exactly what it’s about and I’ve yet to watch an episode that wasn’t entertaining.
Quite right. How intriguing that the show is slotted at the same time as that other homage/satire of California-based debauchery, Entourage. It’s a decadence face-off!
(But don’t be fooled by the surface glitz: Both shows only work because they have a heart.)
Also intriguing: You can watch the first episode online now.