marbury

the problem with praise

Increasing the "self-esteem" of pupils has been a guiding goal of the American and to a lesser extent the British educational establishments in recent years. But there's plenty of evidence to show that praising children indiscriminately is counter-productive. This is from an interview with educational psychologist Angela Duckworth:

Self-esteem has gone up in the United States; achievement has not. If anything, compared with other countries, we have done worse, but our kids feel really good about themselves on average.
What seems particularly interesting, and there is an article by J. P. Tangney on this, is that there is an uncoupling between your perception of your own competence and how much you like yourself. Many American kids, particularly in the last couple of decades, can feel really good about themselves without actually being good at anything.

Far more important than self-esteem, says Duckworth, is self-control. Encouraging children to push themselves and work hard is the key to educational achievement.

(via Jonah Lehrer)

a bit of rough

The aspect of the Palin phenomenon I find most baffling, and most frustrating, is the refusal of some intelligent, well-informed commentators on the right to acknowledge her utter vacuity. This was almost forgivable during the heat of the election campaign when she seemed, briefly, to offer a shred of hope to the Republican campaign (though she turned to represent an unprecedented disaster for the ticket). If you really, really want your side to win you can convince yourself of some things you'd regard as fairly absurd under normal circumstances. But I mean, that's not really an excuse. And it certainly doesn't apply now.

Of course, following Friday's car crash of a resignation speech, many of her already-dwindling band of supporters in the media have retreated, aghast. But how could they be surprised? Did they really think this woman was Margaret Thatcher? Did they still dream that she might disappear to Alaska, have a Robert Johnson-style meeting at the crossroads, and return as a compound of Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger? Hadn't they been listening to her?

Some, unbelievably, hold on to the dream even now - whether out of pride or mischief, I don't know. William Kristol thinks it's all a cunning plan (if so it's of the Baldrick variety). Others - and here we must single out Ross Douthat - wave goodbye to the Sarah they had such hopes for with a yearning, regretful tone, as if penning a letter to a lover they must leave behind:

And now, seemingly, it’s over. Oh, maybe not forever: she’s only 45, young enough (and, yes, talented enough) to have a second act. But last Friday’s bizarre, rambling resignation speech should take her off the political map for the duration of the Obama era.

Douthat goes on to draw a moral that Palin would approve of: it's the elites what done it. The demise of Palin, hounded by a media that hasn''t been as tough on anyone, ever (he doesn't mention Hillary Clinton, but then, the contrast wouldn't flatter the Alaskan) just shows what happens when a working-class woman of doughty good sense tries to break into the cosy and well-guarded world of America's elites. I'm elaborating slightly, but that's the gist of it. Myself, I suspect this is enormously unfair to working-class Americans. Admittedly, I don't know many, but the ones I've met had at least a basic grasp of reality, something Palin clearly lacks.

How to explain this mush from one so clever? As ever, the French have a handy phrase that captures what I think may be going on here: nostalgie de la boue. It means, literally, hunger for the mud, and it's used to describe the way the way that some middle-class people idealise the lower classes, longing to be at one with what they suppose to be a more primitive and more truthful way of being. Douthat has a big brain, is well-educated, terribly middle-class and rather donnish - and he's irresistibly drawn, even now, to the idea of Palin as a kind of noble savage. It used to be the province of the left, this sentiment, but it's been adopted by the American right. It explains a lot about the Palin Delusion.

better than crying

Acceptance speeches are rarely vessels of wit or wisdom. But this one is exceptional. Mark Rylance, the British actor and playwright, accepts a TONY and delivers a strange, funny, and maybe even profound little monologue to an amused and baffled audience:

twittering the french revolution

Gideon Rachman of the FT has an entertaining column on his ambivalence about Twitter, which some excitable commentators have claimed is responsible for Iran's revolutionary throbbings:

Marx never got a chance to consider the importance of Twitter to a successful revolution. But my feeling is that it is mainly hype. The French revolutionaries somehow managed in 1789, without being able to tweet to each other: “Big demo planned outside Bastille.”

palin's rational decision

I do try and be something like balanced here but... good God, the woman is a gibbering idiot. Yesterday's press conference just leaves you open-mouthed with renewed amazement that this person could have got anywhere within a million miles of national office - could have been taken seriously by anyone remotely serious themselves. She talks like a badly programmed robot, with stresses in weird places and no sense of, well, sense. Her sentences stream out in all directions like children being released early from school; unrelated propositions tumble incoherently after one another as if she's hired William Burroughs as her speechwriter. And this was a prepared statement.

But yes, you read that headline right. Although I doubt that Palin has a grand plan, or any kind of plan (I suspect she's very much of the 'Just do it if ya feel it' school of political thought, whose alumni include, well, nobody who's actually got anywhere) she has, perhaps unwittingly, or half-wittingly, arrived at a rational decision. I realise this puts me at odds with most sensible commentators. Here's Alex Massie, for instance:

Palin's resignation certainly gives her time to spend in Iowa and New Hampshire and the rest of the Lower 48 in advance of a 2012 presidential campaign. But that campaign would have been more credible had she completed her term as governor. Even then, a single term as governor of a small and strange state a long way from anywhere offered little by way of proof to substantiate Palin's claim that she had the necessary experience to be a national contender. Standing down before the end of that term seems a pretty good way to ensure that her task is more, not less difficult. That in turn makes one wonder if there's something else going on, some scandal or calamity waiting to be unearthed. That would at least explain this decision, even if it didn't also make one wonder why Palin remains determined to perform on the national stage. So perhaps it really is just a reckless, baffling gamble.

I don't think it's so baffling. Standing down now makes sense, whatever her ultimate objectives might be. This doesn't mean she has a good shot at 2012 - but then, she didn't anyway.

Here's the thing: you can't run for president from Alaska, not if you have a full-time job there. Being a presidential candidate requires a huge amount of cross-country travel. The country's too big for an Alaskan; New Hampshire is too far. It's hard enough be a candidate from Arkansas or Texas; it's just downright impossible be one whilst governing the 49th state.

Once you accept that, the next choice is whether to stand down in 2010 or now. Again, standing down immediately makes more sense. Palin faced a growing swell of opposition from within her state - everyone in the political establishment and beyond resents her - and they would have made her life miserable, and done everything in their power to stain her reputation further. As a lame duck she'd have been blamed for the painful budgetary decisions that are coming up without having any real say over them. That's a game she couldn't win. She's best off out of there.

Of course, everything that Massie and the others say about the problems this decision presents her with as a possible presidential candidate is true. She will too inexperienced, she will be tarred as a quitter. But the truth is, she was in a lose-lose situation. This is her least bad option, even if it is a pretty damn awful one.

a devastating loss

Please spare a thought for America's comedians.

palin eruption

"I polled the most important people in my life, my kids, where the count was unanimous," she continued. "In response to asking, 'Hey, do you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all of our children's future from outside the governor's office?,' it was four yes's and one 'hell yeah,' and the hell yeah sealed it." Palin has five children; the youngest, Trig, was born in 2008.

For the moment, words fail me (just as, I suspect, they did Trig).

UPDATE: Ah, this makes sense. Of course Palin was never really that interested in politics. Palin is interested in being Sarah Palin. Well good luck to her...(although I don't really take anything she say seriously - it's quite possible she will end up running in 2012).

(Photo: Robert DeBerry/AP)

it's the debt, stupid

David Brooks outlines an argument between Niall Ferguson and James Fallows about China and how its relationship with America is likely to develop. Ferguson argues that China is like Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm: a newly confident world power flexing its muscles and seeking advantage in the economic decline of the world's dominant power. Fallows, who lives in China, argues that the Chinese are keen to cooperate and sustain a mutually beneficial relationship. Brooks concludes:

I came to the debate agreeing more with Fallows and left the same way, but I was impressed by how powerfully Ferguson made his case. And I was struck by their agreement about what to do. This conversation, like many conversations these days, gets back to America’s debt. Until the U.S. gets its fiscal house in order, relations with countries like China will be fundamentally insecure.

It's probably too early to even speculate on what the 2012 election will be about, but let's do it anyway. Barring a terrorist attack on American soil, it will be about the economy, and specifically the debt: who's responsible for it and what to do about it.

i'm the prime minister get me out of here!

(Via Coffee House)

I can only sympathize. But why do pols allow themselves to get into these situations if they're not at ease in them? (Not for the first time, GB's discomfort reminds me of a certain American president.)

a marbury meme

I note, belatedly, and with a little pride, that Andrew Sullivan referenced my post about Obama and game theory in his latest Sunday Times column.

is huck the new jesse?

That's the hypothesis of Michael Barone, who has a look at what the GOP's 2012 contenders might learn from the class of 2008. Barone thinks that Huckabee might do well amongst the evangelical portion of Republican voters, just as Jesse Jackson ran strongly amongst African-Americans, but won't be able to muster enough support from other constituencies to get out of second or third place.

Nate Silver (who provides the rather unappetizing image above) is sceptical that Huckabee will even be able to dominate evangelicals, especially if Palin runs. I tend to agree, and would add that Huckabee won't have the benefit of surprise this time. Part of the reason he did so well in 2008 was his glorious novelty, and everyone's (and I mean the media as much as voters) love of the underdog. That won't work next time around. Like Palin, he doesn't seem to have a long-term strategy in place to address his weaknesses, either. Instead of lying low, and maybe reinventing himself as a fiscal conservative as well as a social conservative (given the state of government finances, fiscal conservatism is likely to be very 'in' next time around) he's just jumping at every opportunity to get on TV and do his shtick on whatever the topic of the day happens to be.

It's also quite possible that 2012's Huckabee won't be Mike Huckabee: that another social conservative with great appeal to evangelicals will emerge to slice off a segment of that vote. The winning candidate will need to have a broader appeal, based in part on serious economic credibility. That candidate should be, and may well be, Mitt Romney. But as I say, I think he's got a big problem of his own.

way off-topic

Did you know about chessboxing? Neither did I.

But it's an actual activity:

A match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by three minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a one minute pause, during which competitors change their gear.

And it's taking Britain by storm.

beer beard

This is from a series of amazing photographs from this year's Glastonbury. I understand the sun came out eventually.



(AP/Anthony Devlin/PA)

the slogan obama won't want to run on

Walter Shapiro summarises the problem Obama will have if - as is very possible - the economy is still in the doldrums come 2012:

(It) is hard to get reelected on the slogan, "It Could Have Been So Much Worse."

I wonder what his slogan will be? After all, he can hardly use the same one again. "More Of The Same"?

somebody needs to understand something

Politico has a story about how the South Carolina Republicans are pretty much united in wanting Mark Sanford to disappear. A GOP state senator called Larry Grooms described what happened when he called the Governor to tell him his time was up:

“Your effectiveness as governor has weakened to such a point ... that we won’t be able to pass any of your legislative agenda,” Grooms said he told Sanford over the phone in explaining why he planned to join those calling on the governor to step down. “Senator, you need to understand something,” Sanford answered, according to Grooms. “This is a story about true love.”

It's almost like a movie...

mj vs prince

Ben Greenman at Moistworks on the peculiar symmetry between the King of Pop and the Purple One:

For a few years there, particularly around the time of Purple Rain, Prince and Michael Jackson enjoyed a rivalry. Both were sexually ambiguous, or at least projected that image. Both were racially mixed, or at least projected that image. Both were prodigiously gifted. Both were rich. Both were famous. But even then, if you looked closely, it was clear that the one who was acting crazier was perfectly sane, and the one who was desperately trying to act normal was unravelling inside. In "I Would Die 4 U," Prince sang, "I'm not a woman / I'm not a man / I am something that you'll never understand." Was he talking about Michael Jackson? All three major points were on target. And, now, the fourth: the title.

run sarah run

(Pic: Brian Adams/Runner's World)

Sarah Palin has done an interview with Runner's World about, well, running. Even on this seemingly innocuous subject she manages to get in a jibe about her handlers from the McCain campaign:

A great frustration I had during the campaign was when the McCain staff wouldn't carve out time for me to go for a run. The days never went as well if I couldn't get out there and sweat.

She also claims (light-heartedly, and in response to a question) that she could beat Obama in a run-off. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked about it at today's press conference (oh yes, they zero in on all the big issues, those guys) responded coolly:

That's an interesting question. How's her jump shot? Maybe there's a terrain advantage in a place like Alaska. I will definitely ask him if he has the time to do that this summer.

Definitely.

Palin is, of course, in training for a big run in 2012.

osama: do your duty and attack us

For those of you unaware of Glenn Beck, he's the latest star of Fox News, having done very well with a show which takes right-wing populism on to a new, fantastical, level. Glenn and his followers know, with a grim certainty, what the rest of the country has yet to wake up to: America has been taken over by its enemies and is in the grip of a socialist-fascist tyranny.

You learn not to be surprised by the lunacies that spring forth from Beck and his guests, but just occasionally I can still be caught with a slack jaw, making an inarticulate sound of disbelief at some clip or other. This is one such moment. Beck's guest is Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent who wrote a well-regarded critique of the Bush war on terror a few years ago (although, unusually, it came from Bush's right rather than his left). In this clip Scheuer proposes, without demurral from Beck, that what America most needs is to be attacked by Al Qaeda:

(I love the way Scheuer refers to 'Osama' by his first name, as if he's calling on a trusted ally.)

Obama's CIA Director Leon Panetta recently accused Dick Cheney of "almost wishing that this country would be attacked again". Could it be that Scheuer is actually Cheney's subconscious made flesh?

(via Comment Central)

there's nothing like a GOP catfight

One of the unintended effects of Todd Purdum's Sarah Palin takedown is to make the reader feel as much disdain for the people managing her as for the candidate herself. Jonathan Martin's report on the latest retrospective round of sniping makes nobody involved look good. But it is funny.

The background: as the wheels started to come off the McCain campaign in the autumn of 2008, there was a flurry of leaks about how difficult Sarah Palin was to work with. Each leak was turned into a major distraction for McCain's team by the media. Campaign manager Steve Schmidt ordered a technician to hack into all the campaign email accounts to discover the source. His suspicion - that Randy Scheunemann, assigned to advise Palin on foreign policy, had gone native and was briefing the press on her behalf - was confirmed. Randy was briefing one member of the press in particular: the prominent conservative commentator Bill Kristol.

They're still arguing about it:

“Scheunemann, confirming that his e-mail had been searched, accused Schmidt of ‘acting in a manner of Iranian secret police’ in going to his account. The foreign policy hand said what was discovered was a message from Kristol inquiring who was the source in the campaign of the ‘diva’ leak, the now-famous complaint from a senior McCain campaign official to CNN’s Dana Bash that Palin was acting like a spoiled and selfish celebrity. Schmidt suggested that Scheunemann had fingered Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain adviser who helped work with Palin, to Kristol in the message. ‘It led to a whole another round of speculation, including Fred Barnes the next night attacking Nicolle Wallace on the air,’ Schmidt said, suggesting without saying directly that was why an effort was made to terminate Scheunemann. … Asked directly if he accused Nicolle Wallace of being the source behind the ‘diva’ leak in his message to Kristol, Scheunemann said: ‘My e-mail did not accuse Nicolle Wallace. It said something very disparaging about Nicolle, but it did not accuse her of being the leak.’ A source familiar with the contents of the e-mail said that Scheunemann actually accused Nicolle Wallace’s husband, Mark Wallace, of being the source of the leak. When Kristol questioned the likelihood of a male like Mark Wallace using such a gossipy term as diva, this source said, Scheunemann wrote back that Mark Wallace knows something about divas because he’s married to a diva.

That bitch has claws!

UPDATE: The plot thickens.

avoiding a presidential WTF moment

Bob Woodward has his critics (particularly amongst those who thought his first book about Bush was too hagiographic) but as a writer he has a talent for capturing and dramatising a telling scene. Here he reports on a trip by National Security Adviser Jim Jones to Afghanistan. Jones delivered a stern message to US military commanders - don't count on getting any more troops:

"At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." ...Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army. "They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000.

Now suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel? Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment."

This is also good:

Jones said repeatedly on this trip that the new strategy has three legs, all of which he said had to be dramatically improved: security; economic development and reconstruction; and governance by the Afghans under the rule of law. "The president realizes it's on the razor's edge," Jones said, suggesting not only a difficult, dangerous time but also a situation that could cut either way. "And he's worried that others don't."

The whole report is worth reading.

duck!

pp god

Photo: AP

Todd Purdum's much-heralded Sarah Palin piece for Vanity Fair contains little in the way of news or insight. He was clearly hampered by the reluctance of McCain's loyal staffers to make strong criticisms of Palin, for fear it might reflect badly on their boss. Even more importantly, his lack of sympathy, or just empathy, for his subject means that he hasn't found anything interesting or new to say about her character. As a result the piece just reads like a string of cuttings.

He has, however, turned up one rather excellent anecdote I hadn't seen before:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

the mandelson plan

As Peter Riddell points out, Gordon Brown's quasi-manifesto is heavily marked by the influence of Baron Mandelson of Foy, and all the better for it.

For a portrait of the most impressive politician in Britain today - and one of the key political figures in modern British history - you can do no better than read this superb profile. It's long (buy the magazine, or print out) but well worth it.

the iraq war isn't over

It's amazing how low-profile the war in Iraq has been in recent months, on our screens and in our newspapers. Even today's news hasn't been treated as truly momentous. But, of course, that doesn't mean everything is, or is going to be, just fine from now on. Far from it. Iraq may yet defeat two presidents.

Thomas Ricks, author of a couple of the most authoritative books on the Iraq war, is pessimistic:

I hope I am wrong, and that Iraq really is embarking on a new course this week. But I don't think so. So I think the real question now is: How fast will the unraveling occur?

Ricks is always pessimistic. Although he's that doesn't mean he's not right. He doesn't see a good outcome whatever we do. Here, he takes his blogging colleague (former Bush adviser Professor Peter Feaver) to task for suggesting that Obama's withdrawal of troops is putting 'victory' at risk - but ultimately agrees that the withdrawal may be premature:

Repeat after me: There is not going to be any victory, no matter how long we stay or how soon we leave. Iraq is probably going to be violent for many years to come, and likely will be a closer ally of Iran than of the United States - nice job, W! For President Obama, the question from day one has been how can the U.S. government best mitigate the damage done in Iraq over the last eight years by the Bush-Cheney administration? The original mistake was invading a country pre-emptively on false premises. Everything we do is tainted by that sin. Even so, Professor Feaver, I wind up on your side, not for your reasons, but because I think the best way to undo the Bush-era damage might not be to bug out quickly.

the brooksometer ticks down

The president's favourite pundit is depressed by the bills on climate change and healthcare that are emerging from Capitol Hill, and thinks Obama is being overly deferential to the legislative branch:

The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.

When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense.

Brooks frames Obama's timid approach to legislating as an over-reaction to the failure of Clinton's healthcare plan in 1994, which was blamed on an arrogant White House attempting to impose a detailed bill on Congress. Obama and his team might plead that all they're trying to do is act within the letter and spirit of the constitution.

Either way, Brooks's conclusion is difficult to argue with. When was the last time Congress passed a truly bold, difficult, interest-smashing piece of legislation? 1965?

go jenny

The discovery of a politician's marital infidelity is a highly conventional story. We're so familiar with the narrative arc - the rumours, the pinched denials, the confession, the wife (it is always a wife) standing by, the promise to embark on a healing period - that we get impatient with its artificialities very quickly. That's not to say each new iteration doesn't present its own frissons of pleasure.

The Sanford affair has provided some key twists on the formula. First, there was Sanford's unscripted, meandering confession, a public stream of consciousness, baffling and at times affecting and bizarrely compelling.

Then there is the role played by Jenny Sanford, the First Lady of South Carolina, who hasn't followed the script either. Her statements during the Governor's disappearances suggested, subtly but very clearly, that she was mighty pissed off with him. She didn't stand by, or just behind, her man during the confession. And she hasn't pretended that this is a joint problem the two of them must work through: this is definitely her husband's cock-up, so to speak, and one that only his "repentance" (I love the harsh, pre-therapy-culture resonance of that word) can begin to fix.

Thank-you, Mrs Sanford, for revitalising a tired genre.

UPDATE: "It's one thing to forgive adultery; it's another thing to condone it."