Don't you think it was maybe considered a little less cool in, say, mid-September, 2001?

Posted at August 21, 2006 8:10 AM in response to The Power of the Pundits

Something that you're missing (or at least glossing over) is the difference between national and local media producers. Reporters, editors and producers for most local print and broadcast outlets don't make that much and are very much in contact with multiple groups in their communities. This doesn't necessarily translate into good journalism -- local TV journalism in particular is wretched pretty much across the board -- but I don't think it's self-evident that working-class issues have to be covered by working-class people at the national level in order to be covered in a valuable way.

Posted at June 16, 2006 7:17 PM in response to Class and the Press

I'm not sure you've got the causal order right here -- isn't it just as possible that the modern versions of America's big four developed in reaction to the structure of American TV? Football in particular turned into a TV show over a span of years, thanks in large part to Pete Rozelle. The 2-minute warning, instant replay, sideline interviews, skycams and on-field (and on-player) mics all came about so that football would make for better TV programming. The NBA and NHL have made similar (though less drastic) changes which are not mirrored in international play -- watch an Olympic hockey game and you'll notice that the breaks tend to run for exactly one commercial and the broadcast always returns after the next faceoff has already happened.

If there had been a major American soccer league in the 1950's, odds are that they would have made changes to create more attractive programming. If baseball could add night games and everybody else could add "TV time-outs," surely soccer could've made some concessions if the market was there.

Posted at June 12, 2006 12:48 PM in response to Soccer and Telecommunications Policy

Your second round is off by 5x -- a 95% accuracy rate against 10,000,000 people would yield 500,000 false positives.

Posted at May 17, 2006 8:14 AM in response to How Well Does It Work?

The Kaplan piece is pretty clear about it:

In fact, the section expresses "the sense of Congress" that "it is desirable that one of the individuals ... be a commissioned officer … or have, by training or experience, an appreciation of military intelligence activities and requirements."

Until recently, the idea was that exactly one of those people would be military. Outrage at the very idea among members of Congress is new.

Posted at May 10, 2006 10:41 AM in response to The New Radicalism

On a related note, at last week's New Pornographers show in Madison -- rescheduled from last October after an attack of appendicitis -- A.C. Newman spent several between-song breaks discussing the awesomeness of socialized medicine.  The highly liberal Madison crowd didn't take it too well, but I thought it was funny.

Posted at February 27, 2006 4:08 PM in response to Rock for Socialism

What puzzles me is that so many Americans care so much that their Government can tax them but care so little that their Government can kill them.

It's simple -- taxes happen to everybody, but getting killed by the government only happens to Them.  Show me a death penalty supporter who's had a loved one get killed by the government -- whether guilty or not -- and I'll show you a death penalty opponent.

Posted at February 14, 2006 1:38 PM in response to Moving On

I find it amusing that Libya, having abandoned its weapons "programs," is now in the same protectorate class as Israel, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.  Won't anyone think of Kuwait?!?

Posted at December 10, 2005 12:12 PM in response to Save Me

1. One big wrench in this theory is the extent to which party ID, rather than ideology, informs voters' decision-making.  If the strategizing involves a liberal-to-conservative spectrum, the candidate has room to manuever and find the median, but in a dichotomous choice between Democrat and Republican, you can't move to the median.
2. The primary process means that, especially for challengers, you need to find the median in the outlying group of people within your own party who vote in Congressional primaries (i.e., the ideologically "pure" activists, in many cases) before trying to find the median of the general electorate.

Posted at November 14, 2005 11:55 AM in response to Show Me The Money

This relates to something Sam Donaldson said this weekend -- people haven't turned away from George Bush because his policies are bad, they've turned away because they no longer trust his character.
In the VA-Gov case, the candidates seem to believe that the voters don't care about policy as policy -- they care about policy as a way to infer "character" qualities, from which they will presumably infer policy qualities for whatever issues come up that actually relate to the Governor's office.  This is an incredibly stupid and needlessly complex method of candidate evaluation, but I'm positive that's what's going on.

Posted at November 8, 2005 10:31 AM in response to What Governments Do