BeldarBlog

The world will little note, nor long remember, the angle of Obama's bow from the waist to King Abdullah; but ...

I'm in a particularly crusty mood at the moment, and this post may draw disagreement from many or maybe even most of those who read it. That's okay. I've just been working up to a rant, and I have to let it out.

*******

In March 1936, my father was a 14-year-old in rural Lamesa, Texas, and he was fairly preoccupied with working toward the rank of Eagle Scout. Thus, he may, or he may not, have paid any attention to the national and international news of that month. The Hoover Dam was completed, and that certainly was a good and noteworthy demonstration of American engineering prowess. On St. Patrick's Day, they had a terrible flood in Pittsburgh. Daytona Beach hosted the first-ever American stock car race. Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art paid an estimated $300,000 — a shocking sum — for Titian's "Venus and the Lute Player." And TIME magazine had already observed with respect to the upcoming presidential election that the incumbent administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was

approach[ing] the November election in a high state of hope. The head of the firm, despite sporadic booing, remains extraordinarily popular with customers who must be resold. His health holds up as well as his glowing confidence. His campaign will be simple: "Things are getting better & better. We planned it that way. Let's have four years more of Democratic Recovery." The Party debt has been cleared away and millions of voters living on government bounty will not be allowed to forget who feeds them. And, above all, the Republicans have no one candidate now in sight who can fire the country with personal enthusiasm.

Across the Atlantic, the Royal Air Force conducted the first test-flight of the Spitfire Type 300. King Edward VIII, having succeeded King George V in January of that year, was deeply in love with Wallis Simpson — a not-quite-yet divorced American — but was still a few months away from his decision to abdicate the throne to marry her. He drew mixed press reviews from his participation on behalf of British and Commonwealth manufacturers at the British Industries Fair outside London: some thought he had compromised his dignity by pulling up his pants leg to display, and roundly endorse, his "ingenious 'Munrospun Sock[,]' into which [was] woven its own garter."

I'm sure if there had been an internet in March 1936, English-language bloggers would have blogged about all of these things. Would my dad have been among them? Not likely, unless there had also been a blogging merit badge available for him to earn.

But with the hindsight available a mere three and a half years later, it would be crystal clear to everyone in the world that the most important event of March 1936 had occurred on the seventh day of that month when — in clear and unambiguous violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles — German military forces suddenly reoccupied the Rhineland. Either France or Britain could have immediately and decisively crushed the German forces — not only throwing them out of the Rhineland but almost certainly causing, as a consequence, the toppling of the German government led by Chancellor and Führer Adolf Hitler. Either nation had ample military force to enforce the Treaty at minimal military risk, but neither had the political spine to do so.

There and then, the civilized world forfeited its last clear chance to prevent, at minimal cost and with unquestionable righteousness, the horror that became World War Two. By the time my father enrolled at the University of Texas in September 1941, most of the world was already at war, and he entered an accelerated NROTC program designed to churn out naval officers to fight and, if necessary, to die on the oceans bordering both of America's shores.

*******

Perhaps when we all have the benefit of similar hindsight, you will pardon me, friends and neighbors, that I have not already blogged this week about whether Barack Obama did or did not bow to the King of Saudi Arabia. (He did, which was stupid and beneath the dignity of the POTUS, but at least he's had the minimal sense to brazenly lie about it now.) And maybe you'll forgive me in a few years, gentle readers, for failing to obsess during the past week or so over the outcome of the close special election in New York's 20th Congressional District, or the considerably more distressing probable last gasps of Norm Coleman's efforts to keep (it pains me to even type these words) Al Franken from taking one of Minnesota's seats in the U.S. Senate. In the long run and the big picture, even in a Senate teetering on the edge of a filibuster-proof majority, Al Franken is going to be no more consequential than Edward VIII's socks, either with or without garters.

But in three or four or six years, when a North Korean missile drops a nuke somewhere on Japan, or perhaps in the vicinity of Anchorage — or, even assuming no continued technical progress by the Norks, they simply hand over a very, very dirty bomb to al Qaeda to put into a container bound for the Port of Houston or wherever — then the whole world will know that it was this past ten days in which Barack Obama proved himself as gutless, indecisive, and naïve as the Brits and the French were in March 1936.

Those of you who were alive and aware in 1986 surely remember how Ronald Reagan reacted to Mohamar Khadaffi's "Line of Death" in the Gulf of Sidra. Even John Kennedy reacted forcefully to a threat of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in 1962 (although he himself had invited that particular bit of Soviet adventurism by his weak-kneed showing at the 1961 Vienna Summit).

So what did Barack Obama do about North Korea's missile launch, made in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion, made to intimidate and threaten our staunch allies Japan and South Korea, and made to humiliate the United States?

He toured Europe. Where he blamed America first for all the world's problems, winning applause from reflexively anti-American crowds and not a damned thing of value more from our European allies.

Then he came home and cut production of the preeminent air superiority fighter of the first half of the 21st Century.

Yes, in the last 10 days, Obama has answered the only question remaining about his administration: We're now sure beyond any doubt that it will be not just a domestic fiscal catastrophe, but a foreign policy/national security catastrophe as well.

Barack Obama is on track to become the worst president in American history, and I frankly can't see any way that can be avoided any more.

Problems leaving comments here?

TypePad is making some improvements under the hood, and I think some of them may be causing conflicts with some of the customized templates I'm using for my comments. At least as I perceive the problem, it starts with the moment I click on the data entry field for the comment text — that's where I start getting odd behavior, anyway.

A few readers have emailed me to indicate that they've had similar problems; but a few readers are still managing to post comments.

For those who are still managing to see their comments posted, I wonder if you're seeing any of the weird behavior (as compared to how my comments were working, say, two weeks ago). If so, feel free to post a description of what you're seeing as a comment to this post.

Or feel free to use this post to test whether or not you can post a comment.

TypePad's customer service folks are very responsive, so I'm hoping the problem can be diagnosed and fixed in short order.

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UPDATE (Sun Dec 14 @ 10:55pm): TypePad's support folks say the bug (as illustrated by this screencap) "is a known issue which [TypePad is] working to resolve this coming week." In the meantime, it seems that the best way to work around the bug is this:

1. Click within the comment text entry field (which will start the bugged behavior, complete with whirling and never-stopping "progress" icons).

2. Click on the "View an alternate" hyperlink, which will cause an error box to appear saying that "You cannot leave an empty comment" error box to appear; click the "OK" button in that error box.

3. The randomized verification text will then appear. Re-type the characters you see into the small text entry field just below them, but don't click any buttons yet.

4. Click again inside the comment text entry field and type your actual comment text. If you click the "Preview" button, a preview of your comment will indeed appear, just below the bold-faced "Previewing Your Comment" headline.

5. When you're satisfied that your comment says what you want it to say, click the "Continue" button just below the verification text entry box — not either of the "Post" buttons.

6. That should post your comment within a few seconds. But the screen won't automatically refresh to show the new page with your comment as posted. (This is causing lots of duplicate comments at the moment, and understandably so.) Instead, you have to manually refresh your browser to display the new page.

I'm confident that the TypePad folks will have this sorted out in short order so that this work-around will no longer be needed. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

Unabashedly oldschool (tragically unhip) blogging

For the record, in response to Wired's claim (h/t Instapundit) that blogs are "so 2004":

My blog has always been for "long-form writing," as my masthead conspicuously warns.  I'm generally satisfied with how my posts fare in search engine rankings. I don't think my commenters are 'tards. I don't have a Facebook entry, and neither do I Twitter, although when properly amused I may chortle.

I have no aspiration to put up 30 posts per day, nor to turn a profit through advertising. I am perfectly content for such readers who may find their way here from time to time to do so because they hope I might provide them with sufficiently "clever, insightful, witty prose to compete with [the] Huffington [Post] and The New York Times" — neither of whom I hold in high regard, and both of whom surely need all sorts of further alternatives on the internet. Ultimately, however, I write here for my own enjoyment.

Blog noir at Patterico's

Wikipedia tells us that "film noir," literally "black film," is

a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.

There are plenty of modern-day wanna-be-noir movies, among them Chinatown (1974), The Usual Suspects (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Black Dahlia (2006), and Hollywoodland (2006).

But my friend and fellow lawyer-blogger Patrick Frey is exploring two frontiers simultaneously: One is the citizen-journalist-blogger paradigm, where a knowledgeable blogger (day job: California state-court prosecutor) digs through the debris that the mainstream media have discarded or, perhaps, buried, to bring you not just punditry but fresh and genuine reporting.

The second frontier is what we might call "blog noir" because it involves crime, moral ambiguity galore, and so many of the sorts of characters that give these fictional films their glamor — the prize-winning star reporter who may make, or cover up, as much news as he reports; the rich entertainer who's been brutally murdered; the snitch; the fall guy; and an assortment of other cops, lawyers, press types, and Hollywood stars and wannabe-stars.  I'm still waiting for Patterico to find a cool blonde dame with legs down to there and an attitude up to here as part of the mix — but Patterico's writing about real life, and maybe there's not a Kim Bassinger role in this drama.

Or maybe she doesn't show up until Act II, which is promised for later.

Mickey Kaus' teaser post could be the blurb for the book jacket:

Poor "Pulitzer" Chuck Philips! Patterico is on Philips' case, he doesn't seem about to give up, and he has a hot doc. ... P.S.: This isn't the embarrassing Philips screw-up that led to a spectacular LAT retraction in April. This is another, potentially more-than-embarrassing, incident — but also related to the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murder stories.

Peel this one like an onion, folks, starting with Patterico's executive summary and then working down as deep as you care to drill.

BeldarBlog re-design done (for now)

Many thanks to those of you who've provided feedback on the changes in format I've been experimenting with here.

I've decided to stick with a fixed-width white container for post text, and to go with something wider than the 500 pixels I'd used since 2003. But I've dialed that back from 800 to 700 pixels to keep the line lengths from becoming too long.

The consecutive comment numbers seem to be working okay, and I've widened the text entry box.

I think the RSS syndication feed (now being redirected through Feedburner) is working okay now.

One reader asked that I incorporate buttons in the sidebar that would increase and decrease the text size. Unfortunately, TypePad advises that they have neither a widget or script to do that, although they've added that to their "new features to-do list" for future development. In the meantime, if you'd like a larger, or different, font, you'll need to use your browser settings for that.

Changes in comments format

While I was tinkering with other things tonight, I think I've figured out how to make two changes to the format in which comments are displayed.

First, comments will no longer display email addresses (even with what's supposed to include no-spam harvesting code). So if for some reason you want to give out your email address, you'll now have to do that in the text of your comment. And those worried about spam and privacy in general need not, I hope, worry about accidental disclosure of their email addresses. As before, however, if you enter a URL in that blank, your name at the bottom of the comment will contain a hyperlink to the website you link.

Second, before the commenter's name at the bottom of each comment, there should now be a number listed that corresponds to the display sequence of that comment (in ascending order, chronologically from the earliest and top-most). This may help commenters be more specific in referencing each others' comments for discussion within a comment thread. As before, there will still be a permanent hyperlink at the bottom of each comment that permits direct links to individual comments.

Let me know if these changes seem not to be working properly, or if you have any other requests/suggestions.

Feeds

Some things about the internet, I know about. Some things I don't. Some things I don't know are known unknowns, and some are unknown unknowns, but one of my known unknowns is the whole subject of feeds, aggregators, and the like.

My blog hosting company, TypePad, has provided some sort of feed, which I think I have turned on properly, so that those of my readers who use aggregators or feed-readers (is there a difference between those terms?) can see when I've posted new stuff. I think it's linked from the very bottom part of my right-hand sidebar, where it says "Syndicate this site (XML)," but I'm not 100% sure of that. But no one's complained lately. Me, I like to use the old Mark I eyeballs rather than a feeder/aggregator, and I just hop around using my bookmarked favorites and/or my own blogroll.

However, in doing some other site maintenance today (especially futzing with the width of the text container in my style sheet, which is very much a trial and error process in which I'm slightly afraid that I will crash the entire internet), I also decided to enable a new TypePad feature which is connected to something feed-related that Google has apparently recently acquired, something called "Feedburner." Now it might be that if I knew what it was and how to configure it, it would make my life 20x easier and ensure that both sides of my toast were the same color every morning. But in the process of turning it on — which included "republishing my site" — I've noticed that what that link now produces when I click it is a summary of my 10 or so first-ever posts from 2003.

I think that's a function only of having "republished," which I've actually done now three or four times as I've been figuring this out. And if so, then with this post, folks who have feeders/aggregators should see it at the top of the list as "new content." If that's wrong, I hope someone will clue me in. And if I've caused anyone confusion — even a fraction of my own — from suddenly getting posts dating back to 2003, welp, consider this a Steve Martin "Excuuuuuse Me!" moment. And if I'm wrong about the whole thing and this hasn't inconvenienced or confused anyone except me, then consider this an Emily Litella moment: "Never mind."

Of course, it occurs to me that if I've broken the feed, then anyone using an aggregator probably won't get this post. Catch-22!

Are the wider margins better?

When I first started blogging in 2003, most folks used lower resolution settings on their monitors, and there were very few wide-screen monitors. My sense is that both of those things have changed, so at least temporarily, I've widened the white text-box for my posts (as opposed to my grey-colored sidebar on the right) to make each of the text lines 300 pixels longer than before (now 800 pixels total), at the expense of the dark blue borders on each side.

A few readers may now have to use a slider-bar to get the full text of each post on-screen, but I'm hoping this won't require them to constantly adjust it as they scroll down. And everyone will have to scroll down less frequently.

I'd be interested in readers' opinions — whether practical, technical, or aesthetic — either via email or, preferably, in comments.

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UPDATE (Thu Nov 6 @ 7:15pm): Joanna comments below that she finds the longer text lines less appealing especially for long posts. When I'm blogging — as compared to when I'm writing, say, motions and briefs for trial courts — I tend to write shorter paragraphs. But I certainly write plenty of them. So you might want to consider this question while reading a longer post, such as the post immediately before this one. And I'm also interested, of course, in how this change affects the comments. And while I'm at it, I'll solicit any other general suggestions (although I'm fairly fond of using Verdana for headings and Georgia for regular text).

Thanks and farewell [to HH.com] from Beldar

This, in all probability, is the last of my teaser posts here noting a guest-post of mine at HughHewitt.com.

It's been great to have the traffic at Hugh's place. It's been frustrating to have no control over the comments there, however, which are sometimes indistinguishable from things you'd read from the more immature posters and commenters at dKos.

I'm grateful to Hugh for the chance to guest-post there, but it's good to be "home." Thanks to those of my regular readers here who've read what I wrote there, and by all means, I encourage you to continue visiting there for Hugh's views too. To anyone who's visiting here for the first time, by all means put up a bookmark, syndicate my XLM feed in your aggregator if you'd like, and pull up a chair.

[Copied here for archival purposes on November 6, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

I first became personally acquainted with my gracious host here, Hugh Hewitt, during the 2004 presidential campaign as part of the exposure of the phony Killian Memos relied upon by CBS News' "60 Minutes" program during Rathergate. CBS executive vice president Jonathan Klein had derided the bloggers who were writing daily about the forgeries and CBS News' then-still-ongoing efforts to defend the indefensible — famously saying that "you couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at CBS News and "60 Minutes"], and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks."

I was another one of those pajamas-wearing bloggers, and Hugh appreciated the irony that CBS News had nevertheless thought enough of me some years earlier to employ me (without pajamas) as its own lead counsel before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, when I successfully defended a summary judgment in CBS News' favor in a defamation lawsuit based on another of its national broadcasts. That led to Hugh and me trading some emails about common judicial clerkship and law firm experiences, plus a couple of occasions on which I was a telephonic guest on Hugh's show, and we've stayed in touch by email at least occasionally since then.

Still, I was very surprised when Hugh asked me in September of this year to guest-blog here through the election. He offered, and I accepted, because this blog would put my writing in front of more eyeballs. And we both had hopes that that might, in turn, do some good for our side in particular, and for the country in general — especially given my early interest in, and consistent support of, Gov. Sarah Palin on my own blog. This has been a volunteer effort, motivated by mostly by principle (and just a little by ego, since even those of us who blog in our pajamas like to have our stuff actually read by more people).

*******

Despite the outcome of the election, I'm personally satisfied that I did all I could to try to counter the relentless and unconscionably vile smears against Gov. Palin that were made by the Obama campaign, its allies on the Hard Left, and their allies in the mainstream media. My only regret, in fact, is that I spent more than a week pondering Hugh's invitation before accepting it — and then Hurricane Ike left me without power and internet access for another week almost immediately after I had started guest-posting here.

The reason for my delay in accepting was simply a desire to maintain absolute editorial control over everything I wrote, without even an appearance of being beholden to any one else's view. And although I've had other, similar offers from high-traffic sites that I also admire and respect, I knew from being a regular reader of this blog over the last several years that Hugh's views and my own naturally run parallel most of the time anyway. Hugh is a partisan, of course, but a joyous one rather than a bitter one. I shoot for that same quality, although with less consistent success.

I knew that I could take Hugh at his word that he wouldn't edit or otherwise attempt to influence what I wrote, and he's kept his word most scrupulously. It ought to go without saying (but in lawyerlike fashion I'll not neglect to say again anyway) that everything I've written here should be taken as representing my own views, and ought not necessarily be imputed to Hugh or the fine folks of Townhall.com just because they've made it possible for you to read my views here.

In hindsight, I wish I had had the benefit of the higher traffic here during the first days after Sen. McCain announced that he had chosen Gov. Palin, because I think that's when a lot of the lies and invective against her first began to stick. But I've only myself, and then a hurricane, to blame for the delay.

Of course, in the best of all possible worlds, Sen. McCain would have secretly made his pick back in late June or July. His aides could have started helping Gov. Palin prepare for a more aggressive, less defensive national roll-out on the QT, and we'd all have been better able to respond more effectively to the tsunami of lies that were unleashed against her. But we don't live in the best of all possible worlds, and I am confident that given her success in Alaska, her fabulous speech at the GOP convention, her performance at the Veep debate, and her strong finish in the campaign, Gov. Palin's future in national politics remains very bright indeed.

(Were I advising her, then assuming the GOP holds on to Ted Stevens' seat and his motion for new trial is denied, forcing his resignation, I'd advise Gov. Palin to appoint a short-term replacement who has disclaimed any intention to run in the resulting special election, and then to run herself for that seat. That would be better than appointing herself, which would likely not sit well with Alaska Republicans who are still upset that Gov. Palin's predecessor, Frank Murkowski, appointed his daughter Lisa to his own seat in December 2002. Lisa was re-elected in her own right in 2004, but changes in Alaska law since then, as a direct reaction to dismay over this appointment, now require a special election within 90 days after a temporary appointment by the governor. Besides striking another blow in the ethical clean-up of Alaska, Gov. Palin taking over Stevens' seat would put her in a better position for a national campaign in 2012.)

*******

Of the future of conservatism and the GOP, I'm skeptical of too-glib arguments too close to this electoral defeat. However, I'll hazard a few points anyway:

Of the five major GOP candidates in the primary, Sen. McCain was my fourth choice. I disagreed with him on a great many issues, and there were times throughout the campaign that I nearly bit off my own tongue to hold back a snarky criticism. But he's always had my respect for his service to this country, and he earned more of it with this campaign (in particular, with his selection of Gov. Palin). Although, as he is the first to concede, he made his share of mistakes in this campaign, I am grateful to him for his efforts.

I do not think that we necessarily need a whole-scale reform of the current GOP primary system, which is front-loaded to produce an early winner and to avoid the kind of sturm-und-drang that afflicted the Democrats until June because of their dreadful proportional voting and caucus schemes. It's unfortunate, but true, that the race for the 2012 GOP presidential primary started yesterday. I think it's unlikely that we'll have such a splintered field by the time the primary votes start coming in.

I'm also of the strong view that we need a committed conservative at the top of the next GOP presidential ticket. Nominating a "centrist" lets the Democrats morph into whatever they need to be in response, which is how Barack Obama — of all people, Barack Obama! — was able to campaign credibly (at least in the eyes of the gullible) as a middle-class tax-cutter. We cannot become the party of political triangulation, because the Dems already have a corner on that market, and it would corrode our hearts anyway. Let them either compromise their principles to campaign more effectively against us, or better yet, let them run on their own real principles (tax, spend, and run-away-home) and let the American people have a clear choice.

That said, I'm equally persuaded that we cannot become rigid and intolerant as a party or a political movement, particularly with respect to hot-button social issues. I will give you a specific example of where we need to be on that:

The first veto that Gov. Palin exercised after being elected was of a law passed by the Alaska Legislature that would have attempted an end-run around an Alaska Supreme Court decision which compelled the state to offer benefits to same-sex domestic partners equal to those the state offered to opposite-sex married couples. Gov. Palin disagreed with that court decision, and indeed, she had said she would support an amendment to the state constitution to overturn it. Although she opposes social bigotry toward gays and is personally tolerant toward them, Gov. Palin had also campaigned in 2006 as opposing either legislation or a state constitutional amendment that would permit same-sex marriage. But she was unwilling to subvert the Rule of Law and separation-of-powers doctrine to reach a politically and socially conservative result by signing into law the Alaska Legislature's disingenuous end-run of the state supreme court ruling, even though (quite arguably anyway) the court had overstepped its own bounds in its interpretation of the state constitution to reach the politically and socially liberal result.

Clear and consistent on our own principles; committed to democracy and democratic institutions operating within their proper spheres; unwilling to rig the game just to reach desired results; and personally tolerant and respectful of those with opposing views. That's complicated conservatism, perhaps, but it's not squishy or internally inconsistent or driven by political expediency.

*******

One of the ironies of my profession as a courtroom lawyer — a/k/a my "day job" — is that things that are awful for my clients sometimes, quite perversely, turn out to be great for me personally. So it is with this election: I'm convinced that without Gov. Palin on the ticket, Barack Obama might well have even carried the State of Texas, because his energized supporters certainly turned out in large numbers in the state's more urban areas. And as a direct result, almost all of the incumbent GOP state-court civil and criminal judges in Harris County were narrowly defeated. The GOP nominees held on in the state-wide races, so the Texas Supreme Court's philosophy isn't likely to change. But tort reform is effectively dead at the trial court level in Harris and Dallas Counties, and although I'm more often on the defense side (typically representing small businesses) than otherwise, my profession is likely to see boom times soon as a result.

So while I'll return to blogging at my own site, beldar.org, it probably won't be with the frequency that I've written here in the last several weeks, and I'll likely also return to writing somewhat more often about legal and non-political topics. By all means, feel free to visit me there. (Maybe Hugh will even see fit someday to add me to his blogroll, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.) My regular audience there is much smaller, and dissenting views are welcome in the comments — although I don't permit as much incivility and subject-changing as the folks who moderate comments at Townhall.com. Mine is a simple, noncommercial site and I pay for the bandwidth, so I refuse to subsidize those whose main goal is to make personal attacks on the host (me) or other commenters.

To all who've taken the time to read what I've written here, whether you found it persuasive or not, and especially to my gracious and generous host, Hugh Hewitt — thanks very much.

— Beldar

Temporary bookmark for Patterico

As cross-posted in a guest post at HughHewitt.com, my friend Patterico's temporarily at Patterico.net while his original .com address is still hijacked.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Gremlins are afflicting Patterico as his website's domain registrar gets its act together. If you can't reach him at his normal address, http://www.patterico.com, then try this temporary address: http://70.32.75.225 ....

— Beldar