Author: Bryant

Huh, my predictions weren’t too bad. Kerry took 40% of the votes in Wisconsin; Edwards took 34%, and Dean took 18%. I underestimated the Edwards surge again. The undecided voters went for Edwards in a big way.

This is no doubt energizing for the Edwards campaign; he’ll be in at least until March 10th. Super Tuesday will tell us a lot. He’s not going to take on Dean as his Vice President, and if he does he’ll lose — you don’t want a VP who’s going to draw controversy and in some ways outshine you. Dean will also have more influence if he converts his campaign into a 527 and becomes a political center for grassroots populism, so I’m not sure Dean would bite on that either.

When expectations for the March 10th primaries settle, Edwards will know what he needs to do to sustain his candidacy.

Addendum: Al Giordano thinks it comes down to New York. He’s been right before.

Wisconsin is voting today. Kerry was polling way high. Figure in the Edwards surge, and Kerry wins with Edwards coming in second by a decent margin (I’d say he beats Dean by around 5 percentage points).

Edwards sticks in the race till Super Tuesday to see if he can beat Kerry head to head. It wouldn’t surprise me if Edwards wins Georgia, but that’s the only Southern state on March 2nd. If Edwards wins Georgia and still has money flowing, he may keep it going till March 9th to take advantage of a Southern slate of primaries. If Edwards surprises everyone, which is possible, he could catch fire.

Dean is set up to make a long term political difference if he can keep his organization in motion. I’ll be watching closely. I don’t think he’s going to stay in the race after today, however.

Warning: the post ahead touches upon devil’s advocacy regarding recent gay rights events in San Francisco.

Dan Gillmor wonders whether the Mayor of San Francisco should be ordering city clerks to disobey the law. Larry Lessig chimes in. His argument is that the executive branch has a duty to disobey unconstitutional laws. I find myself pensive. Ashcroft and Bush no doubt feel that it is unconstitutional to force them to provide counsel to Jose Padillo.

I am also not convinced by the McCain-Feingold argument. There is a distinct difference between vetoing an unconstitutional law and refusing to obey one after it has become law.

Perhaps the last paragraph saves the argument:

“One critical caveat: The rule of law requires some coordination. So if a court decides that a law is constitutional, while an executive has the right to disagree, and even push to have the decision changed, it is important that the executive follow the law at least with respect to that case.”

But we do not say “Well, Bush is wrong, but it’s all right for him to make that decision until the courts overrule him.” We say “He should never have done that.”

Elsewhere, there’s the obvious comparison to Roy Moore:

“The fact is, Newsom has a duty to uphold the law, as Moore did as a judge. If he is not willing to do that, he can resign in protest. That would have been the truly principled thing to do. He could have also issued a proclamation that he thinks gay marriage would be a good thing, and his office could even issue a proclamation that he considers all those couples to be married, even if the law doesn’t allow it, and give all those couples copies to put on their walls.”

And yes, Newsom is violating his oath of office. No less so than Roy Moore, unless you think Newsom’s oath is less meaningful than Justice Moore’s. Of course, most of the people using this line of argument didn’t disapprove of what Roy Moore did.

It’s not that I disapprove of what Newsom did, because I don’t. I’m glad he did it. It’s that my approval for Newsom’s actions forces me to reconsider my disapproval for Roy Moore’s actions. I do not have a dispassionate argument for approving of the one while disapproving of the other. Neither does the guy quoted above, unless he was saying that Moore should have resigned.

Schoolhouse Rock had best never return to the airwaves. It would be far too complicated.

The Fog of War blew me away. Unexpected, revelatory, all that good stuff. Mostly just plain compelling. Errol Morris got Robert McNamara to open up about a lot of his life, albeit not as much as one might like about Vietnam, and it’s really just a gripping picture of a man who was under immense pressure and who made mistakes.

I can’t say it answered many questions. MacNamara comes about this close to saying he screwed up Vietnam, but he doesn’t really get deeply into the matter — which is interesting, considering that he flat out says he acted immorally in World War II. Vietnam is closer to him, for some reason. It framed some questions for me: was MacNamara a man with a finely developed ethical sense who acted against that sense out of loyalty to Johnson and Kennedy? Was he a man with a finely developed ethical sense who had an easy time ignoring that ethical sense in order to achieve the desired goals?

He’s not really giving us many clues. He may be lying, or not.

Still, it’s a portrait of regret whether or not it’s a portrait of mendacity. How often do you hear a former Secretary of Defense say he may have been a war criminal?