Viva Schadenfreude!

So people like you and me who don't follow celebrity gossip are finally thrilled that a judge has locked up Paris Hilton. But I'm not going topile on someone who's as deep as a puddle. I'm here to say get ready, because when she figures out how to open the exit door she will be a bigger celebrity than ever. If anything we'll have to endure her even more.

The only thing that fascinates our celebrity-obsessed culture more than acelebrity is a celebrity behaving badly. And in the United States today -- a country with citizens dying in an unpopular war, troubled public schools,outsourced blue- and white-collar jobs and an upcoming Boomer retirement glut that few people are prepared for -- nothing gets more media and public attention than a troublemaking celebrity! How many trust-fund princesses have been to jail? Paris is a G now!

Expect her newfound fascination with God and desire to better the world to last as long as the next Middle East ceasefire. Or until her next DUI.

The media apocalypse awaits. Get ready for all Paris all the time!

Random Musings on the Presidential Field

I’ve purposely resisted saying anything about the 2008 election yet because, like most of America, I don’t have the intestinal fortitude to remotely ponder it yet with any clear thought. But with the media, in all its ADD-glory, anointing Michael Bloomberg our next leader before a single vote has been cast I feel I must bloviate.

So here are some scattergun thoughts:

· Michael Bloomberg is a smart guy who may make a good Independent candidate. He will not be president. No Independent candidate – from Teddy Roosevelt to John Anderson to Ross Perot to Ralph Nader to whoever comes next – has been president nor will ever be president. The two parties are far too ensconced in our political culture and provide far too much money and organizational support to let an Independent get in the way. I’m actually a big fan of third party candidates and while they can succeed on a local level with the right candidate, a national race is way too vast for a candidate without a party to manage.
· Don’t be fooled by Bloomberg’s war chest. Steve Forbes and Ross Perot had just as much cash. In fact, people who donate money to a candidate are far more likely to volunteer, fundraise or promote him or her to other people in order to make their investment work out. The candidate with the most money generally does win, but it’s not a sure thing.
· States are tripping over each other to have the first primary. Unfortunately, New Hampshire isn’t giving up its prize and the New Hampshire Constitution states it must have the first primary in the nation. And if that means New Hampshire has its primary in December 2007, then that’s what it will have. If all the other states line up behind it, we’ll have our nominees by Valentine’s Day (if not earlier).
· Love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. She is the establishment candidate and the Democratic establishment candidate always wins. Obama has a nice RFK/Gary Hart in 1984 buzz about him, but Clinton will do whatever possible to sabotage his candidacy. The notoriously unreliable early polls have Clinton first or a close second in many states, but each one has uniformly given her whoppingly high negative and unfavorable numbers. Could the Democrats damn the torpedoes and choose a candidate that is completely unappealing to large numbers of independent voters? Well gosh, I truly have no idea.
· The GOP race is more up in the air, but my gut tells me Mitt Romney is running for the VP slot. Here’s what I think of Romney, and if I had more time for the blog I would link to some sites like this one you’ve seen.

The Jihad Cancer

The civil war we’re watching in Iraq is now paralleled by the civil war we’re watching in Gaza. It’s safe to say the huge escalation in violence in Gaza was made possible by Israel ending its occupation and withdrawing its troops. Will the same thing happen in Iraq once we finally leave, with violence expanding beyond the Sunni triangle to the stable areas of Kurdistan and Basra? I don’t know. And don’t forget that long-running civil war in Somalia, with a central government that has effectively ceased to exist for over a decade.

There is a serious cancer in the Arab world, with no foreseeable way out. As Tom Friedman keeps pointing out, the Islamist groups from Al Qaeda to Hezbollah and Hamas have no central philosophy that involves state-building or helping citizens. Their sole M.O. is war and death – war and death for Israel, America, the West and other Arabs and Muslims. And it doesn’t matter who is running those particular countries or who gets in their way. They care so little about their own lives that they are more than happy to kill themselves if it gives them a better chance to kill you.

There are some success stories in the Middle East (besides Israel): United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait have progressive economies, better social standards than most and do not hate outsiders. They have learned to diversify their economies beyond oil and educate their citizens beyond merely standing behind the Koran as a justification for jihad. But these are exceptions. Most countries are run by despotic rulers or teeming with extremists who know nothing but jihad, for that is all they have been taught. And I sense there is a silent majority of Arab citizens who are good people that hate the jihadists but are trapped in the middle, either quietly suffering or leaving their countries behind.

The Passion of Al Gore

In 2000 I hated, hated, HATED Al Gore. Like much of the public and most of the media, I regarded him as an inauthentic, plastic automaton who was quick to claim credit for developments he had little or no control over (inventing that Internet, creating the strategic petroleum reserve, etc.). Gore was a terrible campaigner, lost two of three debates to George W. Bush and couldn’t even win his home state of Tennessee in 2000. Winning that would have given him the Electoral College and the presidency.

After conceding, Gore disappeared. In hindsight, I believe he had a midlife crisis. Like a Kennedy, he had been groomed for public office and the presidency and when he didn’t get it he was adrift. But I never thought Gore looked, well, comfortable when he was a public servant. Remember the cracks about him being a phlegmatic robot? He was like the kid whose overbearing parents molded him from Day One to be the ballplayer or the doctor, when inside there was an artist or writer bursting to get out, but dutifully following orders nevertheless.

Then he finally emerged with “An Inconvenient Truth.” Gore had been talking about climate change for years, mostly to complacent audiences. The media called him “Ozone Man.” But he was ahead of his time then, and now with high gas prices, rising seas and a population weary of its wartime leader, his time had come. What a change! Gore was hailed as an environmental messiah, and the once-scorned VP was now adored by the public and the media, who implored him to run for president again, all inconveniently forgetting how dispassionately and poorly he ran last time.

I think much of Gore’s resurgence is due to Bush’s unpopularity and that nostalgic look back at choices made that we now regret, much like wishing we really hadn’t broken up with that college girlfriend when a marriage turns bad. But I also think much of it is that Gore, who never seemed happy in the role he was somewhat forced to play, is finally doing what he wants to do. He evangelized about the environment long before it was fashionable to do so, and it clearly is something he is passionate about. That passion, combined with his celebrity, is the true reason for his renaissance. He will not run for public office again – this is the role he was born to play.

And his new book? I read the Time excerpt and was intrigued. I haven’t read the entire book, but did flip through it and came back to earth a bit. Blaming today’s problems on the media (I rip the media at least once a month, but don’t blame it for collective idiocy) is a bit too easy. I actually find it fascinating the same media that was so harsh on Gore when he was in office now worships him, a sure sign that the media is overly negative on politicians and politics in general.

The book also reminds me of his turgid, flat speaking style with passages like:

“The remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way — a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.”

I don’t know about you, but that run-on sentence brings back the terrible speeches and debates Gore would make on the campaign trail. I am fully confident this book was not ghost-written.

Would I change my 2000 vote today if I had the chance? No. Gore has already achieved more for the environment than he ever could as President, especially with the Republican Congress he would have inherited. The new book, while guised as either a wannabe dissertation on American Society or a logical blueprint to fix the systems that run it, looks like a slog. But the guy has finally found his calling and is living his life the way he wants, and that is what I truly admire.

More Info:
An interesting review by the New York Observer, by a media person that somehow takes offense that the media is to blame.