My heart still bleeds...

Eeee! Crossed 60,000 words today!!! They're not all good--maybe none of them are, we shall see. I'm just proud of the accumulation of sentences. Word by word, sentence by sentence, I'm telling a story, one that's 80% finished!!! (Not counting revision and rewrites).

On an unrelated note, I just finished "Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World," a book by Michael Lewis ("The Big Short," "The Blindside.") In this short non-fiction book, Lewis travels from Iceland to Greece to Ireland to Germany and finally to California (where he rides bikes with Arnold Schwarzenegger), examining the causes and effects of the worldwide financial crisis. He talks to bankers, politicians, and finance ministers to try to understand how they got into such a mess (in the cases of Iceland, Greece, Ireland, and California) and how they avoided it (in the case of Germany, with some exceptions).

Lewis is a great storyteller, taking something that might be boring and dry and turning it into a compelling narrative. He approached each country as a journalist should--trying to understand it not through a preconceived framework but based on the facts he discovers. And because I discovered the facts along with him, as he told the story, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what happened. He looked at the culture of each country, too, to see how it related to its financial circumstances. From the New York Times review:

[Lewis]weaves... stories into a sharp-edged narrative that leaves readers with a visceral understanding of the fiscal recklessness that lies behind today’s headlines about Europe’s growing debt problems and the risk of contagion they now pose to the world.

It's a fascinating book that left me viewing the world through a more conservative lens. Two common threads across the countries? First, greed. It's omnipresent. Second, people taking more than they've earned simply because they can. Adults mortgaging their children's future in order to maintain a higher standard of living. It's not that I don't blame the elite bankers, who gambled with pensions and 401k's and manipulated the public; it's not that I don't blame government regulators who turned a blind eye so long as their coffers were filled; it's that at the end of the day, each of us is responsible for our own actions, for becoming as financially educated as possible. And I felt for Slovakia as it was being asked to bail out Greece.

Don't worry, my heart still bleeds (universal health care for the win!) but I feel like I have a better handle on where some of the tea party rhetoric comes from. My hope is that tea party-ers realize they're part of the 99%, too. (See Connor Friedersdorf's "Why the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Should Cooperate")

Flyover Country

In February's issue of Vanity Fair, author A. A. Gill describes his trip to the Cincinnati area to visit the Creation Museum. The Creation Museum, Gill says, "isn't really a museum at all. It's an argument." It boasts huge, elaborate displays of dinosaurs riding Noah's ark and seeks to explain how fossils, ostensibly 10 million years old, are actually only a few thousand years old.

To Cincinnatians, the museum (and I use that term loosely) is a curiosity, like Miss Emily in Faulkner's classic story. We suspect there's something strange there--a corpse in the attic, perhaps--but no one's really being hurt.

What made Gill's article so offensive wasn't its ridicule of the museum. I get a little uncomfortable when questioning someone or something based on faith alone, but any place that charges its patrons money and then stretches and denigrates science should be subject to challenge and criticism. No, what was most outrageous about the article was the ridicule he reserved for the people who make Cincinnati their home.

Gill begins, "It's not in the stoic nature of Cincinnatians to boast, which is fortunate, really, for they have meager pickings to boast about."

Huh? Blogger Kate the Great responded best when she listed a plethora of cultural and entertainment opportunities in the Queen City and favorably compared a Cincinnati restaurant to a famous one she recently visited in San Francisco. Also, she made the excellent point that "while Cincinnati ranks 32 in media market size, our metro ranks fourth in the nation in per capita giving."

With one broad stroke, Gill paints an entire region the same color as that ridiculous museum. He seems to suggest that we all believe Moses palled around with a T-Rex. Because when we live in flyover country, clearly we don't understand facts and reason - otherwise we'd be smart enough to move to one of the coasts, where we could pay triple the rent for a third of the space and where our friends would all be as tolerant as Mr. Gill.

While Mr. Gill's piece was just one man's opinion - he certainly doesn't speak for all of Vanity Fair or for everyone from whatever coast he comes from - it struck a nerve. From our libraries to our zoo to our museums and beyond, culture abounds in this city and region. And the people are as varied as our landscape, sprinkled with hills and valleys, parks and forests, rivers and lakes, new homes and old homes. Like any city, we have our knuckleheads and we have room for growth.

We're not a destination city. Kids in other parts of the country don't think "I'm gonna move to Cincinnati when I grow up!" like someone might for New York or Los Angeles. But we have a vibrant community that is on the rise. We deserve to be a destination city. Those of us who grew up here may move away for a bit, but many of us return to the city we love.

I'm already late to this conversation. In fact, Gill's piece showed up about three weeks ago. Tom Callinan sums up the blogger reaction to the article. But it made me angry enough that I had to respond with my two cents.

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary... Quaternary?

I think our country is experiencing a massive hangover from the Bush years. Where was the public outrage over being misled into war, over our country's image abroad plummeting, over the dialog shifting from "we did not torture" to "torture is an effective interrogation tool," and over the complete media failure to challenge and hold accountable the government? There wasn't any, at least not on a grand scale.

But we woke up, head pounding. We have this nagging suspicioun that, you know, mistakes were made. We see ourselves engaged in two wars, our biggest institutions failing and bailed out, the deficit growing and growing. We see our friends, our family, our selves losing work or losing insurance. We don't remember who handed us that 5th shot of tequila, but we see who's in control now. The current powers that be may not be responsible for our headache, but we're angry, and we want to hold someone or someones accountable. We won't get fooled again.

I read an interesting article this morning (which is what spurred me on this tangent) about how the media covers Washington. George Packer writes in the New Yorker that reporting focuses solely on appearance and perception and no longer on substance. This has been the case for decades, now, and no longer surprises us. But he asks us to "imagine [Hamad] Karzai's inaugural address as covered by a DC reporter:

Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai showed himself to be at the top of his game. He skillfully co-opted his Pashtun base while making a powerful appeal to the technocrats who have lately been disappointed in him, and at the same time he reassured the Afghan public that his patience with civilian casualties is wearing thin. A palace insider, who asked for anonymity in order to be able to speak candidly, said, ‘If Karzai can continue to signal the West that he is concerned about corruption without alienating his warlord allies, he will likely be able to defuse the perception of a weak leader and regain his image as a unifying figure who can play the role of both modernizer and nationalist.’

It's easy to imagine an Obama speech being written about this way - political base, perception, image, etc - but, Packer asks, try to picture reporters talking about war in this manner. About the economic crisis. About foreign governments. Today's DC reporters focus on the inside game when, clearly, we're not insiders. Senators aren't meeting with us in back rooms. They're not adding special, hidden clauses in bills that provide loopholes for us...

I remember waiting for the State of the Union address, or other big stages for the president. About eight or nine pundits sat around a table (maybe they were in the "Situation Room"!) and each of them wondered, "What will the storyline be?" Everything--every democratic and republican response--was discussed for show and narrative, not for substance.

In a couple weeks I begin talking about evaluating sources. How do we sift through websites, articles, and books and decide what sources to accept and what sources to reject? Among other things, we look at whether a source is biased, timely, and useful. Is it presenting opinions or facts? Is its argument based on sound or specious logic?

Also, we look for primary sources: original documents, original reporting - not some else's analysis of that source. While a primary source is not necessarily more reliable than a secondary source (it should be subject to the same evaluation), by examining that primary source we can better understand and evaluate the secondary and tertiary sources that use its information.

How much of the reporting holds up to close evaluation? How many times has Fox news decried a poll while holding up its results as indicative of some narrative it's pushing? How many times have we seen a senator (republican or democrat) lie to a reporter but not have it challenged because the reporter is uninformed? How many times have we seen pundits use false logic, conflating causation and correlation, in order to simplify a story?

The story is on the story that is on the story. What passes as news is so removed from the original source that, as viewers, readers, and receivers of that news, we have more and more trouble evaluating it.

Unfortunately, we're still in the bathroom, heads spinning, our bodies slumped over the toilet. "Never again," we say. But are we saying "no" to the right people?

The Moral Universe

The library levy in Cincinnati passed a couple weeks ago by a 3-1 margin; in fact, levies for the Museum Center, MRDD, and Cincinnati Public Schools all passed by significant margins. As trying as these times are, people voted with their hearts and minds and not with their pocket books.

I remember reading a poll this summer, right as the health care debate was gaining steam, and two facts stood out to me: 1. Most people were for reform, and 2. Most people didn't think reform would help them, personally. In other words, they wanted reform because they thought it would benefit society as a whole.

Most of our leaders have shied away from appealing to our better angels (our sense of decency, fairness, and justice) and instead marketed health care reform in terms of something for ourselves only. They tell us to ask: How can I, personally, have better choices? How can I save a buck or two? Or, on the flip side, demand: How is this reform going to take away my choices? With the help of the news media, it's no surprise that this debate has descended into hyperbole.

It's hard not to become disheartened. Just this morning, an article appeared in the New York Times described how

statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

Twenty-two Republicans and twenty Democrats (look! bipartisanship!) included lobbyists' language, from Genentech and other companies, in "statements for publication in the Congressional Record." It should be no surprise that lobbyists conduct "outreach" to members of congress. But there's something almost nefarious about the repetition of lobbyists' language across party aisles. As I tell my students, clarity of thought and clarity of writing are interconnected; you don't have one without the other.

Where do I find heart? A well-turned phrase goes a long way with me, and when I first read "Dreams From My Father" in 2006 or 2007, I knew this Obama person was someone special. He wrote with such poetry and compassion about his life and the world around him. From that first book to his speech on race during the primary season, Barack Obama has continued to demonstrate clarity of thought and clarity of writing.

Quoted by President Obama and Martin Luther King, preacher and abolitionist Theodore Parker said

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I can calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see, I am sure it bends toward justice.*

Parker died before slavery was abolished, but his words and writing suggest that he knew it was coming, whether in 1865 or 1965. His words and ideas persist.

This health care debate, the coming debates about global warming and financial reform, the ongoing debate about Afghanistan: there will continue be noise from all sides, amplified and regurgitated on cable tv, but I have to hope and believe that truth and decency will emerge at some point, quieting the noise.

* Thanks to livinghour.org for the unedited Parker quote

"Reading is the basics for all learning."

~ George W. Bush

When you study early childhood education, you learn all about "reading readiness." It sounds almost like a buzz phrase, empty. But research suggests that children who are read to, who come from homes in which books are available, have significant advantages over children who are not read to; who do not have books that are easily accessible. The former children will be ready to read whereas the latter children will not be, without interventions.

You learn that a lot of factors have a role in a child's ability to read, from environment to IQ. But the only causal relationship is that child's phonemic awareness - his or her recognition that words are made up of sounds. The greater a child's phonemic awareness, the more likely he or she is to be a successful reader. So how do parents increase their child's phonemic awareness? Play word games. Sing nursery rhymes. Toss words around, flip them, rhyme them, and toy with them.

I watched an old episode of Fareed Zakaria: GPS a couple weeks ago. Malcolm Gladwell appeared on the show to talk about his book, "Outliers." The part of their conversation that most struck me centered on the effect that small, early advantages had on future success. That is, early encouragement at a young age reaped huge rewards at later ages.

Gladwell used the example of reading. The difference between a six-year old who reads "a lot" and a six-year old who reads "a little" is very small. But the boy who reads a lot will read better; he will appreciate reading more; he will receive positive encouragement and thus rewards. By the time he's in junior high, he is an avid reader who enjoys more challenging works. He will be in accelerated classes and, later, in the advanged placement classes. The boy who reads a little, on the other hand, will not receive the same kind of encouragement. Because he does not read a lot, he will not improve as quickly; he certainly won't excel. When he gets to junior high, he will not join the accelerated classes. Even if the two boys have the same motivation, one has a leg up.

It's a combination of opportunity and personal motivation that predicts success. Think of Tiger Woods. Obviously, he is very talented. But he is also extremely motivated and was encouraged from a very young age.

Laziness pervades our culture. Laziness of thought, laziness of action, laziness of personal responsibility. As I sit and look at the piles of ungraded papers and dirty coffee mugs that surround me, I don't exclude myself. In the movie Idiocracy, an average guy from 2005 is put into hibernation only to wake up, 500 years later, to discover that he's the smartest guy on the planet. Society has devolved to the point where farms are watered with gatorade, the Oscar-winning film that year is called Ass, and patients at hospitals play slot machines in order to win a chance for treatment. The movie is extremely exaggerated. But parts of it still ring true.

Is it hyperbolic to suggest that we seem to reward the loudest only to devalue the most decent and sensical? I feel like we're sliding toward idiocracy. When a majority of people support a public option in spite of the media's misinformation and overrepresentation of insane, noisy protests, why the hell is our government capitulating? I want to believe that Obama's going to draw a line in the sand during his speech next week. That he'll make the case for clear and substantial reform. But all signs lately are suggesting the opposite: giving things up even though republicans won't vote yes, regardless. Rewarding insurance companies when their profits are through the roof, when they are the ones responsible for denying fair, affordable coverage.

We'll see. Anyway, tonight is five after five, followed by an encore viewing of the wonderful Dr. Horrible.

“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”

~ Carl Jung

One of the Daily Dish's guest bloggers, Jonah Lehrer, writes about the man, likely innocent, who was recently executed in Texas. Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death for a supposed arson that killed his two children. Exhaustive reviews suggest that mistakes were made by investigators from day one and that the evidence should not have been enough to convict this man.

In A Just World, Lehrer describes an experiment done in the sixties that resulted in the development of the Just World Hypothesis. Different groups of volunteers watch a woman tortured:

One group of volunteers is now given a choice: they can transfer the shocked subject to a different learning paradigm, where she is given positive reinforcements instead of painful punishments. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people choose to end the torture. They quickly act to rectify the injustice. When asked what they thought of the "learner," they described her as an innocent victim who didn't deserve to be shocked. That's why they saved her.

The other group of subjects, however, isn't allowed to rescue the volunteer undergoing the test. Instead, they are told a variety of different stories about the victim. Some were told that she would receive nothing in return for being tortured; others were told that she would be paid for her participation. And a final group was given the martyr scenario, in which the victim submits to a second round of torture so that the other volunteers might benefit from her pain. She is literally sacrificing herself for the group.

Lehrer goes on to describe how each of the groups made judgments about the victim based on the type of compensation she was receiving. Here was the conclusion:

the less money the volunteer received in compensation for her suffering the more the subjects disliked her. The people explained the woeful injustice by assuming that it was her own fault: she was shocked because she wasn't paying attention, or was incapable of learning, or that the pain would help her perform better. The martyrs fared even worse. Even though this victim was supposedly performing an act of altruism - she was suffering for the sake of others - the witnesses thought she was the most culpable of all. Her pain was proof of her guilt.

In other words, the observerers altered their judgment in order to reconcile their sense of moral justice. The results suggest that participants believe that if a woman is being tortured, surely she must deserve it. If a man is wrongly executed, ultimately it doesn't matter because he was probably a scummy person.

This discussion reminds me of a post by Marc Ambider not too long ago. He asks, does it matter if torture works? When we have a chrystalized sense of justice - what is right, what is wrong - and that justice is rooted not in moral consistency of individuals but rather the morality of institutions, whether the military or government, then we make the necessary cognitive adjustments to make all actions fit within that moral framework. Torture is wrong except when sponsored by our government.

It's certainly created some dissonance in my own mind. I've always believed, no matter what else is going on in my life or in the world, that people are good at heart and that ultimately we all want the same things: a chance for happiness for ourselves, those we love, and fellow man. But seeing how disingenuine politicians are and watching the mainstream media perpetuate falsehoods have been incredibly disturbing and disheartening.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight (and, "The Dream Lives On")

Ted Kennedy's memorial, funeral, and burial services have been incredibly tasteful and appropriate. Given his stature and accomplishments, it's fitting that our sitting president gave his eulogy. While President gave a great speech, I think Kennedy's son, Ted Jr., stole the show. I'm embedding the first part of his speech. All of it is wonderful - funny and touching - but my favorite moment comes just before the fourth minute, when Ted Kennedy Jr. recalls a story from when he was twelve.

Who knows what impact Kennedy's death will have on the larger narrative of health care reform. I think that I and fellow progressives hope that the other democrats in the senate will feel a renewed call to pass meaningful legislation, i.e. with a public option.

Finally, click here for a collection of editorial cartoons from the day after Kennedy passed.

A Bientot

This evening I'll try again to leave the country. Flight loads are much lower than last time, and so there's a much better chance that we'll make it on (or, at the least, dart over to Atlanta and hop on from there). I'm finally catching my breath, having double-checked my numbers and turned in final grades; I can put this quarter behind me and look forward to the next (and I may see a few of the same students back again...)

I can't add much to the retrospectives on Walter Cronkite, who passed away last night; he was a part of another generation. The Onion's headline put it best: "Most, Last Trusted Man in America Dies." Today's media are so loud, dissonant voices competing for attention. The noisiest come out on top, not the best. When I think of Cronkite, I think of his voice: it carried authority and demanded respect not because it was loudest but because it told the truth.

The new faces of journalism aren't Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson. The evening news serves a purpose, but today when the news is changing 24/7 and that change is being broadcast on cnn, msnbc, Fox, not to mention the internet all of those hours, that purpose is diminishing. No, the new faces of journalism are those of people like Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall, and countless others who pursue truth and try to communicate it to the public.

So off I go. I have a few hours to pick out what books to take and what journals.

@perfectsand

I woke up at 3am again and couldn't fall back asleep. At least I managed to finish the book I'd been reading...

I've been following the protests in Iran and wondering the truth about what's going on there vs my own projections. The mainstream media hasn't paid much attention to this story, and so a lot of information has come via tweets (#iranelection) and blogs such as The Daily Dish. What seems clear is that the vote count is inaccurate and that there is no free speech in Iran.

So I had to laugh this morning when I came across an article in TalkingPointsMemo. Yesterday, TPM reported, Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra tweeted about the situation in Iran, "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House." The reaction on twitter was fast and furious, and here are some examples of replies (via TPM):

ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil

chrisbaskind @petehoekstra My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!

luckbfern @petehoekstra I stand in solidarity with the oppressed rich white men of Repub Party in the House. #GOPfail Allah Akbar!

aciolino @petehoekstra Today I poked my finger on a hanger. Now I know what all those aborted babies go through.

ceedub7 @petehoekstra I got a splinter in my hand today. Felt just like Jesus getting nailed to the cross.

netw3rk @petehoekstra Someone walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

MattOrtega Walked out onto Constitution Ave in D.C. and was almost hit by a taxi. Reminded me of Tienanmen Square.

tharodge @petehoekstra maybe now is a good time to reconsider whether you are ready for national politics?

TahirDuckett @petehoekstra ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina

paganmist @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like. #GOPfail

Clever, eh? I'd almost feel bad for the congressman. But I've always had issues with people comparing their plights to those of others, even in situations far more analogous than the minority party in a democracy vs oppressed population in a theocracy. He just seems so dense.

(I was thinking of titling this post, "The Revolution Will Be Twitterized," but google--after asking me, Do you mean, "The Revolution Will Be Twittered"?--tells me that many, many articles already have that catchy title:)

"This Is My Now,” “The Time of My Life,” “Do I Make You Proud” , “A Moment Like This.”

The "American Idol" winning song is a horrific, treacly number called, "No Boundaries" (not to be confused with prior winning titles such as "This Is My Now"). Lucky for me, I'm partial to horrific, treacly numbers, especially when sung by American Idol contestants.  

It's easy to make fun of American Idol. In fact, it's the kind of thing that I typically would make fun of. But I love it, and I love being part of this national conversation, however superficial. 

Knowing a bit about sports, politics, and pop culture - I have a ready reference for any awkward situation; some kind of common ground. 

Dishonour descended

Language has the power to connect, to reveal truths, but it also can disguise or obfuscate (I love that word) the truth. That is, those who have power can control language and thus create their own reality. I wrote a little about it last month. This entry at Daily Kos, The Joke's on Us, explains how "waterboarding" entered into our vernacular just five years ago and why it should be called its more appropriate name, "water torture." 

The writer begins by describing how certain professions, "so challenging, so emotionally stressful," require "a culture of biting black humor" to get through each day

Fire fighters who talk about "crispy critters" don't do it because they fail to understand that the remains found in a smoldering house are someone's friends, someone's family. They do it exactly because they know these pitiful remains are all that's left of living, breathing people, and if they don't distance themselves emotionally from what they're seeing, they won't be able to do their jobs. If they don't place a box around what they're experiencing today, they won't be able to work tomorrow -- and tomorrow they just might save someone who can still be saved. Part of that box is language that seems cruel or dismissive to a casual observer.

The writer explains that "waterboarding" was a term created by torturers who needed to create a new name for an old technique. "Waterboarding" was darkly humorous because it likened the activity to surf boarding. It was an inside joke to people who knew and witnessed the horrible reality of torture.  But now, the media have adopted this term and its entered popular culture:

Rather than using the term "water torture," they're indulging in the dark humor of the people who watched men's eyes go wide before the sopping towel was pressed against the face. For that there's no reason, no reason at all. Because when it comes to matters like torture, the last thing the public needs is a media that's trying to insert itself between Americans and the ugliness of our government's actions. Giving us that kind of emotional out isn't going to protect us, it just makes it easier for us to repeat this horrible era.

Saying "waterboarding" trivializes what we've done. It's not a neutral term, it s dismissive term, created with the purpose of snickering at pain.

The term is "water torture."

I've written this quote before, from J.M. Coetzee's "Diary of a Bad Year": "Dishonour descends upon one's shoulders, and once it has descended, no amount of clever pleading will dispel it." President Obama may wish to sweep the Bush administration's torture program under the rug (this shameful, dishonorable age), and focus on the many daunting tasks at hand, but I don't know that it's possible. Everyone's complicit - democrats, republicans alike. They let it happen. We elected them (and re-elected them), and they represent us: so we're complicit too. 

Is that why we say "waterboarding"? Not that we're being dismissive of the reality, "snickering at the pain," but that we too tortured?

It's Sunday, so I'm headed to my grandmothers, laundry and vanilla bean in tow. We'll wait for a call from my dad, who's just returned from war-torn Uganda to corrupt Nairobi. My brothers and I joked about being able to insert "war-torn" in front of anywhere he goes. We're allowed to joke that way because we're on the inside: the fear is ours.

Tortured Logic

Some time in the middle of the quarter, we talk about identifying bias, logical fallacies, and the use of language to obfuscate and manipulate truth. There isn't a better example than torture, and the "tortured logic" used to justify its use.

• "Mistakes were made." Using the passive voice disguises the main actor; mistakes were made by whom?  We don't know, but they were made, it's time to move on!
• "We don't torture." President Bush said this in 2003, and President Obama said this in 2009. When Bush said it, we believed him. That lie, then, puts a cloud over everything that follows. Regardless of whether you think President Obama should prosecute torturers and the justifiers of torture from the previous administration, he is definitely doing the right thing by bringing this to light; transparency is the only act that will remove the cloud.
• "Enhanced interrogation methods." That's so less ugly than torture, right? 

Andrew Sullivan wrote a brilliant post about power, conservatism, torture, and Western civilization. The whole piece is worth reading--it's only four paragraphs--but here is its first one:

The assertion of total power through unchecked violence - outside the Constitution, beyond the reach of the law (apart from legal memos from hired hacks instructed to retroactively redefine torture into 'legality') - will be seen in retrospect as the key defining theory of Bush conservatism. It ended with torture. Why? Because reality may differ from ideology; and when it does, it is vital to create reality to support ideology. And so torture creates reality by coercing "facts" from broken bodies and minds.

God, it's ironic that Bush -- the cowboy, the "you're with me or against me" president -- became the postmodern president, using power to shape and define "truth." And President Obama, with his ability to look at people, countries, policies, etc, from different points of view, seeing the gray between "us" and "them" and the compromise between "with me" and "against me," appears to be the modern president - searching for truth, using methodology and science and dialogue to find the best solutions and policies. 

Waiting at the airport Sunday and Monday night, I watched more cable television news than I'd seen in the previous two months. A panel of talking heads were discussing "enhanced interrogation methods." What disgusted me was the fact that these "news analysts" were treating it as a partisan issue, with republicans excusing it. This is a clip from yesterday, but it reflects the tenor of these ongoing conversations: